Pune: Dempo Sports Club midfielders Clifford Miranda and Anthony Pereira rolled past the Pune FC defence for most part of the match as the Goan club defeated Pune FC 3-1 in a Round VI match in the I-League Football championship at the Balewadi Sports Complex stadium here on Saturday.
Miranda was first to score before Pune FC drew level through Jeje Lalpekhlua, but the home team’s resilience caved in much before Dempo actually got into their usual rhythm. Pune FC must thank their third-choice goalkeeper Amrinder Singh, who saved a couple of chances.
The win consolidated Dempo’s position at the top of the table with 18 points from six matches, while it was Pune FC’s third straight loss after losing to Prayag United SC and East Bengal in Kolkata early this month.
Pune FC stay at 10th position with just five points in their bag.
On a perfect evening for football, Dempo reveled in the conditions as Miranda and Pereira tested their opponents early on before the Goans opened their cards. A long aerial ball from the right flank in the 14th minute found Miranda lurking in the box and he nicely headed in Dempo’s opener.
Stung by the early reverse, Pune FC sent Douhou Pierre and Jeje from the middle to find some gaps. Surprisingly, Izumi Arata was off-colour in the first half, but Jeje was a treat to watch among the Pune FC players. Jeje earned a free-kick at the top of the Dempo box to give Pune FC some hope of a fightback.
Douhou was perfect as his shot found Jeje in front of the Dempo goalkeeper Subhashish Roy Chowdhury, whom the Pune FC striker beat comfortably to give the home side the much needed equaliser in the 25th minute.
Douhou controlled the midfield, but Pune FC strikers failed to assist his enthusiasm as much of the half chances that were created were lost. Dempo’s counters were fast – and that frustrated the Pune defence.
Just when it seemed that the team would go for break at 1-1 after Douhou’s corner saw Jeje make a brave attempt, Dempo fired back with an amazing counter-attack.
Anthony Pereira received a long ball from the centre and he had just goalkeeper Amrinder Singh to beat. Pereira outsmarted the home custodian without much ado to put Dempo 2-1 ahead in the 40th minute.
On changing the ends, Pune FC looked tired and that gave Dempo further impetus to sneak in. An unfortunate handling of the ball in the box, gave Dempo a spot kick on a platter, which Ranti Martins converted with a shot into the roof of the post.
Prayag miss penalty and settle for a draw
Kolkata: Prayag United SC were not able to make the most of their home advantage when they were held to a 0-0 draw by Salgaocar SC at the Yuba Bharati Krinangan.
Prayag are sure to rue their missed penalty when Kayne Vincent failed to beat Karanjit Singh from the spot in the 60th minute. The penalty was awarded after Vincent was pushed in the air by Biswajit Saha.
Yusuf Yakubu did made a comeback for Prayag but could not get his name on the score sheet as chances were few and far between; and although there was a lot of open play in the centre of the field, there were not many clear cut chances for either team.
In the 7th minute of the match, Deepak Mondol made a clearance of the first chance of the match – an attack initiated by Chidi Edeh and Ryuji Seouka.
Half-way through the first half, it was clear that Prayag United were relying more on the long ball while Salgaocar was putting together a few passes on the ground. Both defences held fort as Jaspal and Luciano hardly made a mistake in the Salgaocar defence while Deepak was showing his experience in the Prayag United defence.
In the second half, Karajit’s penalty save seemed to inspire Salgaocar as they pushed forward looking for a winner in the last third of the match but Somnath Khara was equal to the task.
Courtsey the result, Prayag stay on 10 points from 6 matches while Salgaocar are on 7 points from 6 matches.