Khalid Jamil's team bottle it in Goa; give away two cheap penalties for Odafa to steal victory

BACK TO BACK penalties given away by Mumbai FC saw Odafa Okolie score twice and steal a 3-2 win for Sporting Clube de Goa in a thrilling I-League encounter at the Fatorda Stadium tonight.

Sporting Clube de Goa made wholesale changes to the side that got held by Salgaocar on Thursday. Illustrious names like Mehrajuddin Wadoo, Dharmaraj Ravanan, Marcus Mascarenhas as well as Ganesh Thakur came in to present a new-look side to take on Khalid Jamil's Mumbai FC, who fielded the same side that held Mohun Bagan to a goalless draw at the Cooperage.

The first few minutes saw Odafa navigate the attacking half with spirit and force a free-kick. The spot-kick, taken by Odafa himself, hit the human wall, went to Loveday Enyinnaya who let fly but Mumbai keeper Pawan Kumar was there to expertly get his hands on it.

SCG built pressure again, with Odafa feeding Ganesh Thakur but Min-chol Son got in the way of it, denying the youngster.

But out of nowhere, Mumbai FC drew first blood. It was a cornner kick that came flying into the middle of the hustle zone that Sushil Singh managed to get a touch on. The ball went in and the away side suddenly had an early lead.

But the hosts immediately striked back. It was the danger man Odafa again, working his way past multiple defenders and feeding Nicholas Fernandes who ran in and and rammed the ball into the net. One-all.

Now back even, both the teams played an aggressive physical football that saw cards come out of nowhere. Allan Dias got one for a nasty one. Srikanth Ramu joined him in the book and then Allan Dias was fouled in an aerial duel by Marcus Mascarenhas who got a yellow too. In the meanwhile Arata got a chance to counter but messed up, SCG wasted a couple of free kicks and the scoreline remained the same when the first half came to a close.

The second half got off to a heady start with some back to back action. Mumbai FC suffered a setback when Min-Chol Son had a clash with Marcus Mascarenhas and hurt his ankle enough to be substituted by Ashutosh Mehta. But they got a boost, with Arata leading a poinsonous counter-attack and sending a golden pass to Sushil Singh who made no mistake in finding the mark. Mumbai FC were now 2-1 up.

Down now, SCG coach Mateus Costa brought on Victorino Fernandes to replace Ganesh Thakur and it almost worked as Victorino immediately got a touch from scoring range that missed the goal by inches. 

But they didn't have to wait long to get back even. Glan Martins found his way into Mumbai box and was fouled. Odafa Okolie took the resulting penalty and coolly slotted it in. The game was 2-2, 74 minutes in.

Mumbai got a chance to go ahead again when Eric Brown found his way past a few defenders and passed the ball to Arata inside the box who fired hard but missed the target.

And that miss proved to be costly for that visitors as Pratik Chaudhari continued his habit of rash tackles that came to the fore against Mohun Bagan and brought down Odafa inside the Mumbai box. SCG were awarded a second penalty, it was Odafa again who took it and of course he scored. Sporting Clube de Goa were leading for the first time, by a 3-2 margin, 85 minutes in.

Mumbai had one last chance to salvage a point from this game. Arata fed Sushil Singh inside the box but the latter made a complete mess of the shot. And that was it. Mumbai FC had been beaten by their own lack of composure. The win was a huge boost for Sporting Clube de Goa who climbed to the fourth spot with 11 points from 7 games, while Mumbai FC are now in a visible slip after a promising start, down to the 5th spot with just 9 points from 7 game. 

Sporting Clube de Goa will take a lot of heart from this result, as they are looking at two difficult away games against Mohun Bagan and Mumbai FC next. For Khalid Jamil, it's time for introspection: his side has played well and produced positive results against East Bengal, Mohun Bagan and Bengaluru FC but have constantly slipped and dropped points against lesser sides like DSK Shivajians and Sporting Clube de Goa. He will definitely not want a repeat of that when they play Aizawl FC away in the next game.