Sporting Club, Goa, too good

Sporting Club De Goa trounced Eastern Sporting Union, Manipur, 4-1 in Group I in the second phase of the second division National Football League championship, in Bhopal, on Wednesday.

The Goans, who led 3-0 at half-time, forged ahead in the 20th minute when striker Wilson Fernandes crossed the ball from the right to well-placed Pascal Pereira, who made no mistake.

Then Premanand Gadelar came on the scene and scored a brace within a space of ten minutes, getting the team's second goal in the 28th minute and the third ten minutes later.

After the change of ends, the Manipur boys made some goal-bound moves and kept the Goan defence under constant pressure. They got the reducer in the 71st minute through skipper S Rohendro.

Agnelo Rego of Sporting Club made the score 4-1 in injury time.

The Goans are now tied with Punjab Police with six points each after playing all the four matches in their cluster.

The Manipur team, which lost all their four encounters, are relegated to the bottom of Group I with zero points.

The winners and runners-up of the group are yet to be decided.