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The Sporting Clube de Goa Juniors were held to a 2-2 draw by the Salgaocar FC Junior in their second encounter of the GFA’s TACA Goa Under-20 at the Duler Stadium in Mapusa on Sunday. Akeraj Martins (35’) and Daryl Costa (70’) gave Flaming Oranje the lead twice while Salgaocar FC equalized on both occasions through Devendra Murgaokar (45+’) and Divyansh Sudan (90+’).
Sporting Goa started off with a familiar 4–4–2 formation, while the forward line had a definite boost with the inclusion of Akeraj Martins who missed the previous match. The first half witnessed a very balanced game as both teams took a cautious approach towards the crucial encounter.
However it was Sporting Goa who drew the first blood when their explosive striker Akeraj Martins announced his return in style with a fantastic run on the right flank to beat two defenders and send in a bullet past the Salgaocar FC keeper giving Sporting Goa the lead. Sporting Goa managed a few more promising attempts in the first half through Daryl Costa and Harshad Naik but couldn’t get past Salgaocar keeper Antonio Da Silva.
Salgaocar FC made the most of their best chance in the first half which came in the added time. Devendra Murgaokar who came in as a substitute managed to smartly beat Sporting Goa’s off-side trap to receive a good ball from Lalit Taniyal and place it past Shervin to put things on level terms seconds before the break.
In the second half Sporting Goa showed the intent as their forward trio created some promising runs but they couldn’t make it count. In the 55th minute Karen Shirodkar of Salgaocar FC got his marching orders for a rash tackle on Harshad Naik reducing The Greens to 10 men. Exploiting the one man advantage Sporting Goa made some promising moves of which the best one came in 58th minute when Akeraj Martins made a head on run against the Salgaocar keeper but the latter managed to see off the danger, at the other end Shervin had a similar experience seeing off a dangerous run from Lalit.
Sporting Goa once again took the lead when an in-form Daryl Costa beat his marker on the left flank to drill a low shot past the SFC keeper making it 2–1. Sporting Goa held on to the lead right till the end as they managed to keep possession and exploit the large gaps in the Salgaocar formation. However for the Flaming Oranje, the injury time ghost came back haunting them when Divyansh Sudan of Salgaocar stole a point with a low right footer after being set up well by Manesh Kumar in the dying seconds of second half injury time.
With this result Sporting Goa have collected four points from the two matches played.
