Sports
I-League: Dempo beat Goa, Royal Wahingdoh edge past Bharat FC
Margao, Jan 27
Dempo SC rode on strikes from
Lenny Rodrigues, Alwyn George and Francis Fernandes to march past 10-man
Sporting Clube De Goa 3-0 in an I-League football tournament encounter
here Tuesday.
Sporting had to play with 10 men after defender Clement Joseph was sent off in the first half.
Dempo
made a couple of changes to their starting line-up as striker Alwyn
George and veteran midfielder Clifford Miranda replaced forwards Mandar
Rao Dessai and Holicharan Narzary.
Sporting coach Mateus Costa
also made two changes to his first eleven as Pratesh Shirodkar and
Sumeet Passi were deployed in place of Don Bosco Fernandes and Joseph
Pereira.
Five minutes into the game Dempo got a jolt when
mid-fielder Peter Carvalho got injured injury and was replaced by
Germanpreet Singh.
Both Sporting and Dempo had their chances but
the custodians were equal to the task, keeping the game goalless till
the 28th minute when Rodrigues found himself at the end of a midfielder
Carlos Hernandez ball who then skipped past the defenders to fire in the
first goal from the edge of the box.
Sporting encountered more
problems two minutes into the first half stoppage time as they were
reduced to 10 men, with defender Joseph being sent off for a second
yellow card offence after a tackle on Miranda.
Dempo doubled
their lead courtesy a George strike five minutes into the second half as
he got away from his marker Rojen Singh and slotted the ball into the
net.
Sporting tried to stage a comeback with only few minutes
from regulation time to play but midfielder Royston Dsouza's shot and
Liberian-Australian striker Boima Karpeh’s header failed to find the
target.
In the fourth minute of injury time, Joyner Lourenco's
intercepted a pass from Germanpreet and the ball fell into the path of
Francis Fernandes who went on to find the back of the net, making it
3-0.
In another I-League encounter in Pune, Royal Wahingdoh beat
Bharat FC 2-1 courtesy strikes from Korean super-sub Kim Seong-Yong and
Seityasen Singh after New Zealand forward Kris Bright had given Bharat
an early lead.
It was a fiercely contested match where both sides
created opportunities, but the Royals sealed their third win with pure
grit, as they came-back for the first time in the league to take their
chances in the second half and come up on top of their opponents.