Goa, Mumbai settle for goalless draw

Margao: Last year’s runners-up FC Goa made their life difficult after they were held to a goalless draw by Mumbai City FC in a crucial round-robin fixture of the ongoing Hero Indian Super League football tournament, here on Wednesday.  The draw takes Mumbai City FC to second position in the standings with 16 points from 11 matches, while FC Goa continue to languish at the seventh place of the eight-team tournament with 11 points from as many games.
It will be an uphill task for FC Goa to make the semi-finals of the ongoing edition of the tournament as any slip-up in their remaining three games will throw them out oif the knock-out race.
The Goans now need to win all their remaining three matches to stand a chance of qualifying for the semi-finals.
The visitors, who were looking to avenge their home match defeat, had the first chance to surge ahead in the fourth minute when a move on the right saw Matias Defederico lay a pass to Sunil Chettri, whose left foot effort was easily collected by Goa goalkeeper Laximikanth Kattimani.
The hosts slowly settled down and held the ball possession with Rafael Coelho, who played as a withdraw striker, keeping the attacking moving.
Coelho kept on delivering well directed through passes and often caught the rival defence off guard but Romeo Fernandes, who found himself in good position twice inside the box, failed to direct the ball on target.
The visitors, who were looking to move at the top of the table with a win , came up with couple of counter moves and nearly scored but first Matias Defederico’s shot got a deflection off a rival defender and went to keeper Kattimani and latter Diego Forlan’s stinging left footer from distant was punched over by alert the alert Goan custodian for an aborative corner.
The second half of the game saw Mumbai City FC doing bulk of the attacking and home team coach Zico sensing trouble made two quick changes, bringing in Joffre Gonzalez and Trinadade Goncalves in place of Debabrata Roy and Keenan. (PTI)