Goa blow away Pune to remain in contention for ISL semis

FC Goa kept themselves in the race for the Hero Indian Super League (ISL) semi-finals as they crushed FC Pune City 4-0 at the Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex Stadium here on Sunday.

FC Goa, who were winless in five matches, opened the scoring through Manuel Lanzarote's penalty in the 28th minute. Hugo Boumous made it 2-0 immediately in the second session and then Ferran Corominas scored a quick brace in the 58th and 65th minutes to give Goa a much-needed boost.

The victory took Goa's points tally to 24 from 16 matches. They are now placed sixth and will qualify for the semi-finals if they win their remaining two matches.

Pune City are still second with 29 points from 17 matches and need a draw from their final league clash against Delhi Dynamos FC. And they will have to do that without their captain and leading goalscorer Marcelinho who picked up a red card in the 80th minute.

Goa tasted success in the 26th minute when they won a penalty as Moroccan midfielder Hugo Boumous was brought down inside the danger zone by Adil Khan. Spanish forward Lanzarote kept his cool to send goalkeeper Vishal Kaith the wrong way for the opening goal.

Goa should have had their second goal in the first session itself. At the stroke of half time, Goa almost caught Pune on the counter when Corominas and Lanzarote worked their way up but Kaith came up with a spectacular close-range save to deny the former from adding to his 13 goals in the league.

Goa came out all guns blazing in the second session and caught Pune by surprise. A minute after restart, Hugo made a run to the right and calmly squared it to Lanzarote who hit it on target but Kaith made another spectacular save.

A minute later, Hugo struck the post with a powerful left-footer. But he finally got the goal he was looking for a few seconds later when he received a ball inside the box from Corominas and danced his way past a defender before finishing it past a diving Kaith.

The Pune defence was caught napping again when Hugo back-heeled a sweet ball to set up Corominas and the leading goal-scorer made it 3-0.

Corominas was soon to score his 15th goal and Goa's fourth in the 65th minute from a penalty, which was awarded after Mandar Rao Dessai's cross was handled by Sarthak Golui.

Pune City didn't test Goa goalkeeper Naveen Kumar as much as they would have liked with Marcelinho's curler which went wide, the closest they came to finding some consolation.

--IANS

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