National Football League runners-up Salgaocar took a big step towards advancing to the semi-finals of Durand Cup football tournament, beating Tata Football Academy 4-1 in a quarter-final league match in Delhi on Monday.
Playing their first match of the tournament in Group C, the Goans, without five regulars, took time to settle down at the Ambedkar stadium and allowed TFA to go 1-0 up in the seventh minute before restoring parity seven minutes before the break.
Earlier in the day, Mahindra United knocked Army XI out of the tournament, scoring a 2-0 win in Group A. The army team had lost their first match to JCT 1-2.
With today's big victory, Salgaocar are almost through to the semi-finals. They just have to ensure a draw against Mohammedan Sporting in their last quarter-final league match on Wednesday.
Sporting had played a 1-1 draw with TFA on Saturday.
Salgaocar coach Savio Medeira must surely have been a happy man to see his team come back from a goal down.
The TFA boys began with a flourish, just like in their first match against Mohammedan Sporting and caught the Goans off guard.
Following a fast move down the left flank, center-forward Vimal Pariyar beat Goan custodian Rajat Ghosh Dastidar with a fine placement to trigger celebrations on the TFA bench.
But for that goal, Pariyar missed a number of chances in the first-half and had the upright come in the way following a fine try.
Twice, in the 31st minute and 34th minutes, it looked like Pariyar would strike but on both occasions, but he missed.
Meanwhile, the Goans slowly began to come good and Nigerian Felix Ibrebru advanced more than once, probing the rival defence. What followed was the Salgaocar equaliser by hardworking Tomba Singh. The medio advanced through the center, got inside the box on the left side and after dodging two TFA defenders deposited the ball in the left corner of the cage with a swirling shot.
Changing ends, TFA again began racing up and down and effected their first change, bringing in Khemtang Paite in place of Sumit Thapa. But soon action shifted to the TFA goal with Dharamjit Singh and Ibrebru earning a corner. Dharamjit curled the ball in and defender Bello Rasaq, another foreign recruit, rose above the TFA markers to head the ball in to put Salgaocar 2-1 up eight minutes after the break.
Egged on by coach Rajan Choudhuri, the TFA boys tried to come back but Pariyar again missed inside the box. Towards the hour mark, Pariyar almost broke through from the centre circle but was ruled off-side, which saw East Bengal coach Subhash Bhowmick, watching the action, going up in disbelief not convinced about the call.
Soon Salgaocar replaced Mascarenhas with Samson Singh and the substitute killed off the TFA team's challenge with two goals in the 77th and 78th minute.
First he latched on to a pass from Ibrebru and swiftly went inside the box and scored. With a good view of the goal Samson then made it 3-1 with a powerful right-footer.
Before TFA boys could regroup, the successful combination again worked the magic, breaching the defence again as Samson made no mistake to take the game away from TFA.
As the TFA boys threw in the towel, Salgaocar began to toy with their opponents, weaving a string of passes inside the rival half.
The match saw a few more tries from the Goans with Tomba Singh and skipper Climax Lawrence going close to scoring.
Against the Army men, Mahindra settled the issue before half-time with two goals in the space of four minutes.
Togo striker Raphel Patron opened the account in the 33rd minute, dodging two defenders before finding the target. Four minutes later, Army custodian Abungobi Singh was beaten again as Syed Altafuddin deftly guided a Steven Dias pass into goal.
Changing ends, Mahindra could not add to their tally as Abungobi Singh came up with fine saves time and again.
Patron and Altafuddin went up repeatedly but in the end were denied by Singh.
Then it was the turn of Odartey Lawson and S Venkatesh, who replaced Jules Alberto, to test the Army 'keeper but they failed to score a third goal.
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