Goa showed some brilliant football in the second half as they scored a solitary goal victory over Jharkhand in their cluster IV match at Tiruchirapalli in the 63rd National Football Championship for Santosh Trophy to pocket three points.
The game was played more in the midfield area and there were hardly any moves made. The start of the game saw Goa dominating and making some moves but off to no use as they failed to break into the opponents den.
Though it was initially that Goa dominated and after that it was Jharkhand who took the proceedings in their hand. Jharkhand even got a chance to take the lead but their shot was saved by Goa custodian Felix D’Souza. As the match entered into the lemon break the scorecard read 0-0 and one could expect that the match was headed off to a draw.
But in the second half the Goan outfit got their acts together and started playing a composed football. Their strikers started intruding into the opponents den at regular intervals and kept the Jharkhand custodian busy under the bar.
Goa could have won from a better margin as they got three chances to score but their strikers failed to get their acts together. But their hardwork paid off as in the 82nd minute a cross from Nicholas Rodrigues had Fredy Mascrenhas unmarked inside the box and the later had no problem in finding the back of the net and hand his team a 1-0 victory and three points from the opening encounter.
Source: the-aiff.com
From the archive. First published on footballkerala.com on Monday 25 May 2009, restored from the site's 2012 database. Text as originally published.
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