Team Herald
sports@herald-goa.com
MAPUSA: Ronaldo Oliveira’s two-goal blitz enabled Goa Police register a fluent 3-1 win over Churchill Brothers SC in the Goa Professional League match played at Duler Stadium, here, on Sunday.
For Goa Police Ronaldo (2) and U-21 Atharv Ghadi scored, while for Churchill Brothers Sagolshem Singh pulled a goal..
After Sunday’s win, Goa Police have 18 points, while Churchill Brothers have just three points, both having played their seventh GPL match.
In one way traffic, Goa Police pinned their opponents inside their own territory in the entire first session where they went for the lemon break with two goals cushion.
In the very first minute, Goa Police striker Ronaldo beat the offside trap from a long ball by Mayuresh Naik and placed the ball into the net past the onrushing Churchill Brothers custodian Gairik Roy, 1-0.
The second goal was from a brilliant move, where Ronaldo found U-21 Rui Noronha on the right flank whose low cross at the goal area saw overlapping U-21 Atharv Ghadi slot the ball into the net, 2-0.
As the match progressed, in the 18th minute, former international Francisco Fernandes replaced injured Samuel D’Souza and thereon Goa Police had numerous goal scoring opportunities.
Ronaldo and Francisco missed two open sitters, while Mayuresh and Ronaldo’s placements missed the target narrowly. Also Francisco strike came off the horizontal bar.
On crossing over, Churchill Brothers coach Robert sent in Mohammad Khan, Stendly Fernandes and Richard Fernandes from the bench and this brought immense transformation in the team’s attack.
In the 57th minute, a 25-yard shot by Churchill Brothers’ Ngathem Meitei was not cleanly collected by Goa Police custodian Presley Mascarenhas and the ball rolled to striker Lunminlen Haokip, who had an open goal in front of him, but shot out, to the total disbelief of his teammates and supporters.
However, in the 68th minute, Lunminlen Haokip managed to hoodwink number of Goa Police defenders and squared the ball to Sagolshem Singh, who tapped the ball into the net, 2-1.
Red Machine almost equalised two minutes later but Moirangma Singh saw his goal-bound strike from inside the penalty box hit the defender for a corner.
In the 81st minute, substitute Suraj Hadkonkar moved upfront from the right flank and entering the penalty box sent a deadly cross to unmarked Ronaldo at the far end who coolly tapped the ball into the goal, 3-1.
In the added time, substitute Beevan D’Mello was thwarted by Churchill Brothers custodian in one to one situation.