Team Herald
sports@herald-goa.com
MAPUSA: New entrants Goa Police Sports Club had an easy outing as they drubbed Panjim Footballers by 3-0 margin in the Goa Professional League match played at Duler Stadium, here, on Tuesday.
Goa Police management strengthened their squad, with the signing of former Vasco Sports Club head coach Micky Fernandes, who in turn roped in Brian Faria, Ronaldo Oliveira, Francisco Fernandes, Moses D’Sa, Fulganco Cardozo and Suraj Hadkonkar, which kept their opponents on their toes and scored three goals through Francisco Fernandes (45+3 minute), Mayruresh Naik (76th minute) and Suraj Hadkonkar (85th minute).
In the 18th minute, Panjim Footballers goalkeeper Bhaskar Jalmi left his charge to clear the ball to safety before overlapping wing-back Prajwal Ghadi could do any damage.
Nine minutes later, Mayuresh Naik connected a reverse kick off a diagonal pass from Francisco Fernandes, which hit Panjim Footballers defender for a corner.
Panjim Footballers colts did shine in patches, where defender Veron Pereira did spray some crosses at the rival goal which were intercepted by Goa Police defenders.
In the stoppage time of the first session, Francisco drilled a stiff grounder which took a deflection off Panjim Footballers’ defender Darwin Carvalho and the ball rolled into the goal, 1-0.
On crossing over, the tempo of the match intensified, where capital side were unlucky twice not to level terms.
Substitute Shaviz Pathan’s left footer curling placement came off the far side post.
Minutes later, Shaviz sent a through pass to unmarked Richie Vaz, who had just the Goa Police custodian Saish Kankonkar to beat shot skywards.
At the other end, Goa Police striker Ronaldo Oliveira seeing rival keeper out of position shot at the goal which came off the horizontal bar.
In the last quarter of the match, Goa Police pinned their opponents inside their own territory.
Francisco received a through pass from Kunal Salgaonkar and drilled a hot-blooded shot which was brilliantly blocked by on rushing Panjim Footballers custodian Bhaskar.
However, the keeper could do very little to stop Goa Police pumping in two more goals where a superb header from Mayuresh entered the goal and in the 85th minute a neat placement by substitute Suraj completed the rout, 3-0.