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Salgaocar stay in hunt

Joel Antonio

Shrugging off the pronounced prodigality of the first stanza, Salgaocar, Goa, produced a presentation of precise striking in the second to garner three full points from a 4-0 rout of State Bank of Travancore in the return clash of the National Football League match at the Nehru stadium in Fatorda, Goa, on Monday.

The triumph and the points added to their kitty kept the Goa champions in the third spot, with four matches in hand to the finish.

Salgaocar now have 33 points from 18 matches, having won nine of them and drawn six and are placed behind leaders Mohun Bagan (41) and another Goan outfit, Churchill Brothers (35). The bankmen have 20 points from as many matches.

Salgaocar should have shut out the bankmen in the first half itself. But their strikers were wayward in front of goal and blew a plethora of chances in the first half. However, egged on by a partisan home crowd, they got their act together after the change of ends and punished the rival defence at regular intervals.

Piling the pressure from either flanks they shot into the lead in the 54th minute when midfielder Jules Alberto ran in well to meet and nod home a lob from S. Venkatesh. Ten minutes later, with the pressure increasing, the roles were reversed with Venkatesh applying the finishing touches to an Alberto pass.

The Salgaocar attack was now ripping through the SBT defence and in the 82nd minute, midfielder Ravichandran headed home a precise cross from Brazilian Joao dos Santos from the left flank. And six minutes later, striker Alvito D'Cunha, who came of the bench a while earlier, deftly turned home a cross from Jules Alberto to complete the rout.