Sporting stun Mariners

Mohun Bagan faced a shocking defeat against bottom placed Sporting Clube de Goa by 1-2 in a match of ONGC I-League round 17 at Yuba Bharati Krirangan. Full strength Bagan team brought the taste of first victory to the Goan outfit this year while themselves moved too far from the championship.

Earlier Bagan took the lead at the 12th minute of the match when Barreto’s angular flick of a low Snehasish Chakraborty centre found the net. (1-0). What a superb goal it was!! But that was the end for Bagan. After that they lost control of the match and three foreign recruits of Sporting started disturbing the Bagan defence line.

In the 32nd minute of the match Sporting equalized the score when Junior headed the ball for Adil Khan and he volleyed the ball in to the net, although the angle was bit acute still it beat Sangram Mukherjee. (1-1).

In the lemon break all the Bagan fans might hope for a big margin victory against the bottom liner as their team strength is one of the best in the country. But in the 67th minute everyone in the stadium get shocked when in a counter attack Amos’s low centre from the right flank find Junior and he didn’t make any mistake to dip home (1-2). It was all over for Bagan.

The Mariners did everything at the Sporting end in the last twenty minutes except the goal.

Sporting remain rock bottom but their first win of the campaign will give them much needed confidence for the rest of the season while Bagan’s dream of I-League seems to be moving away as they are now seven points behind from the fore runner Dempo. Dempo won the goan derby by 4-2 against Churchill Brothers today.

Mohun Bagan: Sangram Mukherjee, NS Manju, Deepak Mondal, Rakesh Masih (Branco Cardozo, 85th), Surkumar Singh, Snehasish Chakraborty, Ryuji Sueoka, Marcos Perreira, Ishfaq Ahmed (James Singh, 46th), Edeh Chidi, Jose Ramirez Barreto.

Sporting Clube de Goa: Felix D’Souza, Chandrasekhar Chinta, Kengi Arai, Felip Gomes, Joseph Perreira, A. Khan, Nicholas Rodrigues (Bisheshwor Singh, 56th), Bibiano Fernandes, Rovan Perreira, Junior Elijah (Elvino Fernandes, 90th), Nathaniel Amos.

Referee: PK Bose.

MoM: Kengi Arai.

 Picture Courtesy: Bartaman