Joston Pereira struck a stoppage time goal, just before the final whistle, to restore parity for Penha de Franca against Goa Police in the concluding Round 14 fixture of the GFA 1st Division League at Duler grounds, Mapusa on Saturday.
The Goan Network
Panaji
Joston Pereira struck a stoppage time goal, just before the final whistle, to restore parity for Penha de Franca against Goa Police in the concluding Round 14 fixture of the GFA 1st Division League at Duler grounds, Mapusa on Saturday.
The initial half of the first session, saw Penha de Franca realising a few scoring opportunities which were frittered away. In the 12th minute, Goa Police custodian Niklesh Naik was found off his line with a charging Denzil Sequeira muffing up to give his side an early goal buffer.
Minutes later, Suraj Kauthankar of Penha executed a long ranger which was well taken by the rival custodian. Soon after another of their players, Raju Padoshi missed to score from close. With the
momentum with Penha side, Goa Police looked to claw their way back into the game. And an inkling of what lay in store came in the 24th minute when Goa Police’s Milind Shinde sent a cross to the right to Akshay Shirvoikar who narrowly missed to connect upfront. Shortly later, Goa Police’s U-20 player, Gaurav Kankonkar, took his team ahead showcasing his dribbling skills to slot home the ball. But Penha did fight back well but lacked the finishing touch with their striker Denzil Sequeira missing out on at least three more good chances to score in the first half itself.
Post resumption, Goa Police could have doubled their lead in the 53rd minute when their captain, Milind Shinde missed to score from hand-shaking distance. Few minutes later, a brilliant Joston cross to Shane Temudo found the latter could not reach out to the ball to bring the score-line level. An unsavoury incident in the 61st minute saw Goa Police reduced to ten men, with Balchandra Vernekar receiving the marching orders.
With time running out, the coach brought out his substitutions. The first, Mayur Bhagat brought on in the 67th minute played a mockery of himself with two adventurous bicycle kick attempts to be substituted within 18 minutes of being brought on. Penha eventually got their equaliser in additional time (90+2) with a magnificent run into the rival defence and breaking through to score.
With the results of the last round, Corps of Signals on virtue of being at pole position of the First Division League are promoted to Goa Pro League, while bottom-placed Panchwadi Unite SC get relegated to the Second Division.
