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Luciano strike floors HASC

Special Correspondent

PHOTO: G.P. SAMPATH KUMAR

GOING FOR IT:Salgaocar's Irunegbam Meitei and HASC's Jagaba Hamza Amaba fight for possession.

BANGALORE: Salgaocar Sports Club, Goa, smarting from two successive defeats, needed a win to put it back on track. It achieved that with a 11th-minute goal to send local outfit HASC crashing to its fourth defeat in seven encounters of the I-League at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium here on Monday.

The all-important goal came from a header from Salgaocar captain Brazilian Luciano Sobrosa who turned home a Ryuji Sueoka flag kick from the right.

HASC survived a bigger massacre including a second half ‘penalty' but just did not have it in it to score on this day.

Japanese striker Ryuji Sueoka and Ghanian Yusif Yakubu ran in circles and this unsettled HASC defence. In the 11th minute Sueoka floated a corner-kick which the Brazilian stopper Luciano struck true and hard into the far corner.

In the second half, a dangerous long punt from Tomba Singh saw Ryuji racing ahead only to be brought down by HASC goalkeeper Pramod, which earned him a ‘yellow card' booking. But the resultant ‘penalty' by Yakubu rebounded off the post.

“We missed three-four key players including livewire Xavier Vijaykumar through injury and had to field half-fit Vijeesh Kumar and Sanath midway. With full strength it would have been a different result,” said M. Muralidharan, the HASC coach. But with three consecutive defeats, the Aircraftmen who began on a rousing note winning against both JCT and Mohun Bagan, will have a hard time to recover.

HASC will next face Air India on January 9 at Kolhapur and will look to arrest its run of defeats. Salgaocar, meanwhile, hosts Churchill Brothers on January 8.

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