I-League: Churchill Brothers score first win through Jaison Vales injury-time winner!

A 94th minute strike from substitute Jaison Vales gave Churchill Brothers SC a dramatic 3-2 victory over Sporting Clube de Goa in the I-League at the Duler ground in Mapusa on Thursday afternoon. Churchill Brothers led 2-1 at the interval.

Churchill Brothers got their first win of the season after fielding their three new foreign recruits namely, Naser Al Sebi (Syrian defender), Abdel Hamid Shabana (Egyptian midfielder) and Yasser Sahen (Syrian striker).

The Flaming Oranje played a lot better in the second half and deserved to get something for their efforts, but Churchill Brothers goalkeeper Arindam Bhattacharya was awarded the man of the match award, which speaks about his heroics against Sporting Goa.

It was Abdel who struck gold for Churchill Brothers in the first minute itself, when he latched onto a cross from Balwant Singh. At the other end Sporting Goa went straight into attack mode and took the fight to Churchill Brothers. Within five minutes they were level, when Keenan Almeida steered in a deep cross field pass which was picked-up by Boima Jerry Karpeh to net his fifth goal of the campaign.

Eight minutes before the lemon break, alarm bells started to ring as Churchill Brothers breached the defence once more. This time the young Alesh Sawant slipped the ball through for Balwant to net Churchill Brothers’ 2-1 half-time lead.

Changing over, Sporting Goa introduced Joyner Lourenco into defence at the expense of midfielder Cajetan Fernandes. The Flaming Oranje worked tirelessly to get back on level terms, but were let down on entering the final third.

In the final six minutes Coach Oscar Bruzon made a calculative substitution by bringing on the young energetic Mauvin Borges for Jovel Martins. This proved decisive as it was Mauvin who laid a brilliant ball on a platter for a composed Pratesh Shirodkar to smash home the equalizer for Sporting Goa.

Bringing on speedy fresh legs seemed to be the order of the day, as Churchill Brothers coach Mariano Dias signaled to the bench for Jaison Vales to take off his training top. This gave Churchill Brothers enough impetus to snatch the three points when Jaison scored with his chest from another substitute Anthony Pereira‘s cross, after a very, very long added on time period.

Churchill after their first win of the campaign have now collected seven points from 10 games and is currently placed 12th, while Sporting Goa remain on 15 points from ten matches and are fifth.