Maintaining their superb form, former champions Goa made mincemeat of Assam before winning 6-0 in a Group IV quarter-final league match in the Air India Express National Football Championship, for the Santosh Trophy, at the FACT grounds in Udyogamandal on Tuesday.
Star striker Anthony Pereira scored four goals, including a hat-trick (12th, 26th, 45th, 53rd minutes), while Climax Lawrence converted a penalty (16th). Clifford Miranda (25th) was the other scorer.
Assam, who had derailed Railways to emerge Cluster IV winners, became the first team to bow out of the quarter-final league as this was their second consecutive defeat after losing their opening match to Manipur 1-3.
The professional players of Goa proved too good for their rivals, who missed star midfielder Monikanta Brahma, who was out due to an ankle injury. The absence of Brahma, who scored a hat-trick against Chattisgarh, had a telling effect on the team.
Three-time champions Goa, started off from where they left off at Kozhikode, where they scored 32 goals from three matches on their way to winning cluster VII.
With quite a few internationals in their ranks, the Goans looked quite pretty with their movements and their tackles and interceptions were executed to perfection.
Goan's star striker Freddy Mascarenhas, who scored eight goals in three matches, seemed off-colour, as he messed up a couple of chances from close.
Assam should thank their goalkeeper, Belifung Narzary, who prevented a bigger margin of defeat with his good anticipation.
On resuming after the breather, Goa continued to hold sway and threatened to score in the very third minute, but Freddy lost control of the ball before he could take his shot from the right flank.
Goa increased their tally in the 53rd minute when Anthony tapped in beating a bewildered Narzary, off a Nicholau Borgues cross into the centre from the right.
Assam's wing halves came out with erratic exchanges down the midfield, which made things easier for the agile Goan strikers to take possession of the ball and make forays into
the rival goalmouth, but were rather haste in driving the ball over the cross-piece on a couple of occasions.
