PANAJI
Sporting Clube de Goa beat Salgaocar FC 2-1 in the finals of GFA U-18 League to be crowned the U-18 champions of Goa on Thursday. Goals from Shubert Pereira (42') and Cayven Araujo (55’) sealed the victory for the Flaming Oranje while Liston Colaco (7’) got the only goal for the Greens.
After winning the Goa Pro League and GFA U-20 Taca Goa titles, Sporting Clube were more than determined to make their mark in the GFA U-18 finals against their cross-town rivals Salgaocar FC. The high-octane clash between the two saw some beautiful football played by either side entertaining a vocal crowd of about 200 odd supporters. The Greens drew the first blood in the seventh minute through Liston Colaco, who shot a perfect freekick to beat Selwyn D’Souza from about 25 yards off. After conceding the early goal the Flaming Oranje settled in well with their trio of Desmond Pereira, Schubert D’Costa and Ivon Costa causing trouble for the Salgaocar FC defence.
Sporting played a fantastic one-touch game and looked more comfortable than the Greens throughout. At the other end, skipper Schubert D’Costa and Brandon Gomes did an excellent job to contain Salgaocar’s explosive Liston. After creating numerous chances towards late in the second half, Sporting scored when Ivon Costa made a dazzling run into the Salgaocar box and Stephen Alvares made a desperate sliding tackle to bring Ivon down. The referee pointed to the spot and Schubert Pereira converted to put the teams on level terms just before the half-time whistle.
In the second half, both teams made their intentions clear as they came all guns blazing in search for an early lead. Salgaocar FC created some good chances at the start, especially when Robert sent in a long ball to Devendra, who got a brilliant first touch but the shot went above the bar.
In the 55th minute, Sporting won a corner kick and Cayven Araujao sent in a perfect curling ball towards the nets which took a slight deflection off a Greens defender but ended up in their own net giving Flaming Oranje the crucial lead they were hunting. Subsequently Carry Vaz and Schubert Pereira displayed some great skills pumping up the crowd with excitement. They both, along with Desmond, created at least three good chances in the second half only to be saved brilliantly by Salgaocar custodian Antoniop Da Silva.
At the other end, Liston won a freekick for Salgaocar exactly in the similar position where he had converted the first one. Hoping to repeat his feat, Liston stepped up this time and shot a perfect ball towards Selwyn D’Souza who had learnt his lesson and punched the ball out of danger. Towards the end Sporitng players threw all they had into the game, making it next to impossible for Salgaocar FC to find any space to operate.
In the final minutes, Salgaocar players were running out of steam while the Oranje unit kept the ball possession and rotated it well within their half to run the clock down. The final whistle saw an ecstatic Sporting bench dash into the field to lift their hero Cayven Araujao who scored the winner.
