Goa survive Services scare

The goal, the only one of the match, came four minutes later with Cabral once again playing a crucial role. Goa skipper Mario took a free-kick which was trapped by Cabral on the left. The striker aimed a long-ranger into the Services box. The ball swung away from the charging goalkeeper who managed to get his hand to the ball, but could not hold it. FrancisSilviera tapped into the net with the goalkeeper lying on the ground.

Services, who were taking their time in settling down, finally did so in the 16th minute with Lal Machwana, neatly trapping a pass from Irudaya Raj, took a beautiful long-ranger which sailed over Goa goalkeeper Juje Siddi and hit the cross-piece.

Maharashtra face Railways

If Bengal win tomorrow against Kerala, they will be assured of a semi-final berth of the 54th Santosh Trophy being played at the Nehru Stadium here. The picture in Group II will be more or less clear with the other two teams in the group Maharashtra and Railways also facing each other tomorrow.Bengal, with three points, are ahead of the rest and are well on their way to another semi-final.

If the opening matches of all the teams in this group are any indicator, Maharashtra appear the most likely to join Bengal in the last four. Even without Godfrey Perreira and Jeevan Moares, the team combined well against Bengal, a game they lost by the odd goal in three.At least they should not have too many problems in beating Railways, a junior side who made it to the quarter-finals by virtue of a better goal average in the preliminaries.Coach Bimal Ghosh was not very pleased after his team lost to a 10-man Bengal yesterday. He was particularly unhappy with the goal-keeping of Yousuf Ansari who let in a simple goal. Ansari will be going back to attend family commitments and Partha Das will take his place.