Ogba steers Sporting

Substitute Ogba Kalu Nnanna struck after coming off the bench in the closing minutes to hand Sporting Clube de Goa a fine 3-2 win over a dogged Pailan Arrows in an I-League match at the Yuba Bharati Krirangan on Friday.

Victorina Fernandes broke Arrows’ resistance early on with a brilliant 14th-minute goal but the local challengers, looking for their first win, struck two goals in space of seven minutes to take a surprise lead.

Arrows’ centre-forward CS Sabeeth brought home the equaliser in the 28th minute before Bijendra Rai made it 2-1 in the 35th minute.

However, the Goans struck back, Rollin Borjen making it 2-2 on the stroke of halftime.
In the second half both teams pushed for the all-important winner, looking to attack on the counter. But the decisive goal eluded both the teams till Kalu’s substitution in place of Freiman Mauricio Peixoto did the trick for the Goans.

The win took Sporting towards safety with 17 points from 14 matches, while the Arrows (7) are placed one spot from the bottom.

Tough test for HASC

Chirag United will look to go all out against bottom-placed Hindustan Aeronautics Sports Club when the two teams meet in a 14th round match on Saturday. Having suffered 11 losses and two draws in the opening half of the season, the Bangalore side is clearly the weakest among the 14 teams, and Chirag coach Sanjoy Sen was clearly aware of the statistic.