Mariners suffer loss at Goa

20-Jan, 2012

McDowell Mohun Bagan suffered a 2-1 loss at the hands of Sporting Clube de Goa in an I-League match played in Goa. Rakesh Masih scored the only goal for the Mariners, though he received a yellow card in the 2nd half. He will, now, miss the next match

After 2 successive wins against East Bengal and Churchill Brothers, the team performed quite ordinarily today and in fact it was Sangram Mukherjee who made a number of saves for the Mariners. Jose Barreto missed an easy chance to score towards the end of the match.

Technical Director, Subrata Bhattacharya made a few changes in the starting lineup. Jose Barreto paired Odafa Okolie in forward line with Mariners playing back to the conventional 4-4-2 formation. Manish Bharghav and Snehasish Chakraborty played in the flanks while Rakesh Masih and Daniell Zeleny were in charge of the central midfield. With Sangram Mukherjee as goalkeeper, Kingshuk Debnath and Anwar Ali played in the heart of defence; Subhasish Roy Chowdhury and Rahim Nabi played as right and left back respectively.

Odafa Okolie who was heavily marked by Sporting defence showed his intentions clear when twice in the first 5 minutes he got past a couple of opponent players but from his pass, McDowell Mohun Bagan players failed to build a constructive move.

Within first 15 minutes, Sangram Mukherjee had to stretch himself to make 3 saves. James Moga had a good match and continued putting pressure on the Mariners defence right through the match.

The first positive movement for Mariners came in the 18th minute when Rahim Nabi's header from a Snehasish corner was cleared by Adil Khan from near the goal-line. Midway in the half, Sporting goalkeeper collected the ball outside their penalty box, but no free-kick was awarded to McDowell Mohun Bagan.

Mariners suffered a big blow when Rahim Nabi injured his nose and had to be replaced by Dhanarajan in the 28th minute.

From Manish's cross, Jose Barreto failed to trap the ball properly in the Sporting box.

Towards the end of the half, Keita hit Odafa with his head but the referee completely ignored the incident and Keita went scot-free.


Odafa tried hard in 2nd half but clearly lacked support from the midfield and he had to retreat to midfield to initiate moves.

Sporting de Goa took the lead in the 64th minute when Keita's header from the corner went inside the goal with no McDowell Mohun Bagan defender in position.

A few minutes later, Daniell Zeleny lost possession of the ball quite easily in front of his own box, but luckily James Moga's powerful shot went off the target.

Rakesh Masih scored a stunning goal in the 71st minute to bring back Mariners in the game. A long ball came to Jose Barreto in the Sporting box. His back pass went to Rakesh via Manish, and Rakesh unleashed a right footed shot that bulged into the net.

A few minutes later, however, Rakesh got booked for a foul on Kalu Ogba and will miss the next match.

The Mariners brought in Hudson Lima in place of Daniell Zeleny in the 78th minutes but Kalu put Sporting ahead a couple of minutes later when his header hit the crossbar and went in.

Odafa Okolie who was limping in the 2nd half was replaced by N. P. Pradeep in the 82nd minute.

Jose Barreto missed a sitter in the 84th minute. Jose Barreto positioned himself nicely to connect Hudson Lima's long free kick with a header, but failed to put the ball inside the net from a handshaking distance of the goalkeeper.

McDowell Mohun Bagan will play their next I-League match on January 22nd against Prayag United, the match will be played in Salt Lake Stadium at 2 p.m.

View Match Photos