I-League: Okolie brace gives Sporting victory

Odafe Okolie scored twice from the penalty spot to guide Sporting Clube de Goa to its first win at home as it rallied to beat Mumbai FC 3-2 in the Hero I-League.

Published : Feb 14, 2016 22:53 IST , Margao

Odafa Okolie (right) has now scored four goals in seven games.
Odafa Okolie (right) has now scored four goals in seven games.
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Odafa Okolie (right) has now scored four goals in seven games.

Odafe Okolie scored twice from the penalty spot to guide Sporting Clube de Goa to its first win at home as it rallied to beat Mumbai FC 3-2 in the Hero I-League here today. Sushil Singh (17th and 57th minute) scored a couple of goals for the visitors but Nicholas Fernandes, who scored in the 24th minute, and two penalties from skipper Odafa (74th and 86th) helped the Goan outfit climb to the fourth position with 11 points in their kitty.

Sporting Goa coach Mateus Costa made four changes to the team, including Dharmaraj Ravanan, Mehrajuddin Wadoo, Marcus Mascarenhas and Ganesh Thakur in the starting XI. On the other hand, Mumbai's coach Khalid Jamil named an unchanged line-up with Taisuke Matsugae not travelling with the squad due to an injury.

After a period of brief dominance by Sporting, the visitors opened the scoring through Sushil Singh from a corner-kick in the 17th minute.Sporting responded soon after when Odafa received the ball from a throw-in and wriggled past a few defenders. He picked out Nicholas Fernandes on the left, who had the time and space to score the equaliser.

The teams were tied 1-1 at half time. And Mumbai FC took the lead for the second time when Arata Izumi initiated a counterattack and sent through Sushil, who shot the ball over Arindam Bhattacharya to make it 2-1.

In the 74th minute, Sporting won a penalty when Ranti Martins was brought down and Odafa sent Pawan Kumar the wrong way to restore parity. Sporting earned another penalty soon and Odafa once again placed it well to make it 3-2.

In the other match of the day, DSK-Shivajians defeated Salgaocar FC 2-3. A. Dipanda scored both the goals for the Pune-based Shivajians, while English striker Darryl Duffy got himself a hat-trick for The Greens from Goa, to become joint top goal-scorer of the league.

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