Dempo, Air-India in goalless draw

A minute later, Paite, working on a pass from Shetty, got two chances. The first, he shot straight at defender Santano Colaco. The resultant rebound, weakly into goalkeeper Salim Ansari’s hands.

Air-India coach Bimal Ghosh was “not satisfied” with the result. “Hitting the post was bad luck,” he said, with a touch of superstition. The airmen also missed the services of P J Jose who arrived in the morning from Goa and could only take the field in the 71st minute denting Ghosh’s aspirations of attacking more.

On the other hand, Dempo’s Brazilian coach Francisco Gonzalves was “happy” with the outcome of the match, saying that they played better today. Speaking in Portuguese with manager Custodio Almeida acting as interpreter, Gonzalves said that they had to put their “best foot forward” against a confident Air-India, who have two wins behind them.

Gonzalves added that they tried to balance the half-line, playing Brazilian mid-fielder Anderson Ribeiro who was doubtful of taking field till this morning due to an ankle injury. Ribeiro lasted almost the entire duration of the match and was substituted minutes before close. But he did precious little in bringing Dempo what they were gunning for — a win.

Man-of-the-match Christopher Ihegborow stayed consistent, giving Dempo a good chance in the sixth minute with a free-kick. But Gautam Ghosh, with his back to the goal, failed to trap cleanly and was dispossessed.

It was the other Brazilian Marcelo Antonio who showed more potential for inflicting damage on the Air-India goal. He took his time before floating in a 25-yarder off a pass from Shanta Kumar which passed by the post from the right in the 11th minute. In the 23rd, Antonio’s free-kick from just outside the box curled away from a jittery goalkeeper Shyam Sawant, beaten completely by the ball’s trajectory, which was hit over the bar by Mathew Rodrigues.

Francis Silveira, who scored Dempo’s winner against Mahindras, had a quiet day, missing a header off a cross by Itocha Singh in the 27th minute the only chance he got all day. Dempo, thus had to be content with a draw in their second encounter of the league.

The only source of entertainment for the enthusiastic few came when referee S Bhattacharya suddenly somersaulted while running, with the ball out of play. The reason — he tripped over his undone shoe lace.