Vasco: Sporting Clube de Goa scored a hard fought victory when they downed Salgaocar 6-5 via penalty shoot-out in the first semi-final of the Super Cup on Wednesday.
The tie-breaker was introduced after the teams were locked 1-1 at the end of regulation period.
Goalkeeper Gerald D'Mello turned out to be Sporting's hero by blocking the effort of Luciano Sabrosa in the penalty shoot-out.
Sporting's new signing Kalu Ogba Nnana, who took the first kick in the penalty shoot-out was on target. He was followed by Keita Boubaka, Joel Martins, Wilton Gomes and N Samanand.
For Salgaocar, Edeh Chidi hit the target first followed by the miss by Lucaiano before Anthony Barbosa, Randeep Singh and Gilbert Olveira converted their strikes.
Earlier, Sporting took the lead after Adil Khan converted a penalty. Salgaocar's Rino Anto was found guilty of handling the ball inside the penalty area, and sent off the field by referee Chandrasekar Shirodkar in the initial minutes.
However, a 10-man Salgaocar did well to keep Sporting away from the net by defending well and relying more on counter attacks.
In one of the counter attacks in the 86th minute, Anthony Barbosa made his way past two defenders on the right flank and supplied a well-timed pass to Edeh Chidi, who made no mistake to put it across the Sporting goal post.
The defending I-League champions should have sealed the game towards the end but Marcus Mascarenhas made a mess of a golden opportunity failing to beat rival custodian in a one-on-one situation with the ball slowing down before being cleared by a defender after the Sporting goalkeeper had thwarted the striker.
PTI
First Published: Wednesday, August 17, 2011, 22:56