Valentine’s brace helps Jai Bharat SC to breeze past Kanara Bros

by Siddharth Yadav January 6, 2016

Jai Bharat SC showed a positive approach against Kanara Bros SC at KSA Ground to register a narrow 2-0 victory in the 20th Late Ramanath Payyade Memorial Football League Tournament 2015-16 on Saturday evening.

Valentine Pereira found the back of the net twice to secure an all important win. The number 11 struck his first goal earlier in the first-half with a sweet finish and added another goal on 50th minute, which proved enough for Jai Bharat SC to overcome Kanara Bros SC.

From the first minute itself Jai Bharat SC never looked back and showed a attacking approach, which eventually paid off earlier in the first-half itself when Valentine Pereira’s goal helped Jai Bharat SC to take a deserving lead.

At the back, Jai Bharat SC’s Nikhil Shetty stood like a wall in front of Kanara Bros attackers Akash Jadhav and Vikas Jadhav. Nikhil’s defensive abilities helped him man-marked Akash and Vikas out of the game for majority of the first-half.

On 26th minute, Jai Bharat’s attacking midfielder Roger Sam almost doubled their lead when he managed to squeezed past Kanara Bros defense, but somehow goalkeeper Sai Kohli saved Roger’s attempt to deny Jai Bharat SC their second goal.

The second-half was all about Roger Sam and Valentine Pereira’s eye-pleasing chemistry. The attacking duo who has played alongside each other at Karnataka Sports Association (KSA) last season, re-visited their glorious days after a destructive second-half performance.

Midway into the second-half, Jai Bharat almost scored their second goal when Saumil Damor put his shot just wide off the right hand post from a fantastic Ganesh Shetty’s cross. Chances kept pouring in for Jai Bharat SC, but somehow Kanara Bros defense put them at bay.

With ten minutes to go, Jai Bharat SC finally doubled their lead when a beautiful link-up from Roger Sam and Valentine Pereira saw the latter tapping a low cross into the back of the net to give Jai Bharat SC a two goals advantage.

Five minutes later on the 55th minute, Valentine turned out to be the provider this time when he found Roger with a delightful through ball, who placed his shot into the bottom corner only to see his goal ruled out as the number 13 was just offside.

Valentine was having a field day as he almost bagged his hat-trick when his right footed drive struck the left hand post on the 58th minute. Kanara’s Sunil Rathod was shown his marching orders in the dying minutes which saw Kanara Bros ending the game not only on the losing side but also being a man down.