By Sporting Clube de Goa Media

GOA: Sporting continued their fine form in the U20 TACA Goa championship as they recorded a deserving 5 – 0 win over Guardian Angel SC today at Cansaulim ground. Once again Akeraj stole the show with a fine hat-trick and was directly or indirectly involved in the other two goals scored. Sporting came into this match with one eye on the title and has sent out a strong message with this impeccable performance.

The match started with a promising move created on the right by Guardian Angel SC who almost fashioned the sight of the goal in the early seconds, but the Flaming Oranje keeper Sherwin Dacunha pulled out a stunning full length save by nicking the ball out of danger line.  The first goal came in at the 24^th minute when Joel Fernandes spotted Akeraj Martins on the run to dribble it past the defender and put Sporting ahead in the match. After the first goal chances at both ends desiccated for a while and either teams maintained a healthy possession in their respective half’s.  Towards the end of first half, either sides created some decent chances but both the goal keepers were solid between the sticks and managed to keep the ball out on every possible occasion.

The second half scripted a different story altogether. About 13 minutes into the second half Akeraj Martins and Joel Fernandes created a fantastic wall pass moment to leave the Guardian Angel SC defenders clue less while Akeraj added one more into his increasing goals tally. After setting up Akeraj twice Joel once again created a run through the right flank serving the ball on platter for Gautam Dais to head home the third goal of the evening for Sporting.

The fourth one came in the most unexpected fashion when a well directed corner was cleared by the  Guardian Angel defenders only to find Shawn Noronha lurking outside the 18 yard box who struck the ball perfectly but once again the Guardian Angel keeper managed to get his finger tips on the ball to push it towards the post. However before they could relax the rebound went straight into the foot of Akeraj Martins who was never going to miss it from that distance making it his second hat-trick within a week’s time.

The final goal of the day came in when Akeraj once again made a fantastic run on the right flank cutting across three players only to be brought down inside the box by the Guardian Angel right back, who was later given marching orders by the referee for his second yellow. The resulting penalty was taken by Shubert Pereira who stood cool as cucumber and converted it with a powerful strike to the top right corner of the goal. Coach Norbert commented after the match,“I am very pleased with the way our boys have played. They put out a solid performance throughout. We could have finished the game in the first half itself but missed a few good chances, however victory is a victory and winning it with a good margin has surely helped the confidence of our unit.”