PANAJI
Sporting Clube de Goa put up a brilliant performance to stay alive in the Durnad Cup as they thrashed Minerva Academy 5-0 in their last group match at Ambedkar Stadium, New Delhi. Glan Martins (14’) opened the scoring for the Goans while Cajetan Fernandes (19’), George D’Souza (73’), Alber Gonsalves (90’+3) and Marcus Mascarenhas (90’+6) completed the rout.
With this win Sporting Clube climbed to second position in Group A with seven points and a healthy goal difference of +7 but will have to wait for a favourable result (a draw) in the match between Army Green and Gangtok Himalayan which will be held on Wednesday to confirm their semi-final berth.Sporting Clube produced yet another clinical first half performance with some quick attacking football. Gaffer Mateus Costa made two changes to the previous side that beat Gangtok, Alber Gonsalves came in place of Victorino Fernandes while George D’Souza replaced Ponif Vaz who was down with fever. Costa adopted the 4-2-3-1 formation with Marcus Mascarenhas leading the attack.
Sporting started off well as Ganesh Thakur and Marcus made some good moves early in the match. The show stopper was Glan Martin's 14th-minute thunderbolt from about 22 yards off. Alber Gonsalves sighted Martins with some room to shoot and send in a low cross towards him. Martins charged forward and struck it perfectly to land it in the top right corner of the nets.
Soon in the 19th minute, Cajetan Fernandes doubled the lead with a brilliant freekick from the edge of the box, placing it well at the corner giving the Minerva keeper no chance to react. After going 2-0 down, Minerva tried getting back in the game as Manandeep Singh and Jaison Vales created some good moves among themselves but failed to break down the Sporting defence. The Sporting Clube keeper Ravi Kumar had an exceptional day between the sticks. The score stayed 2-0 at the half time.
The second half saw both sides going for the goal right from the kick-off. Minerva players gave in their best but couldn’t get past the experienced back four of Sporting Clube. In the 73rd minute, Sporting Clube won a freekick close to the centre line. George D’Souza took an aim at the goal and managed to beat the keeper to make it 3-0 for the Goan side.
Minerva forward Manandeep Singh tried hard but couldn’t produce a match changing performance. Sporting Clube added two more in the injury time when Alber managed to head in a George freekick while Quan Gomes set up Marcus with a brilliant cross, making it 5-0 for Sporting Clube.
