Goa punished Kerala for its frailties in defence to score a 2-1 win and enter the final of the 71st Santosh Trophy National football championship at the GMC stadium here on Thursday.
Striker Liston Colaco struck a brace to shut out Kerala whose weak defence was exposed by Goa.
In the final on Sunday, Goa will meet Bengal which beat Mizoram 6-5 in sudden death in another semifinal match.
Though Kerala had the better of ball possession Goans stung in counter attacks and scored both the goals in the same manner. Kerala attacked from the start but it was Goa which went ahead and off the first chance it created.
Peter Carvalho pushed a long ball to Brian Mascarenhas on the right flank. Brian entered the box and squared the ball to Liston who beat the goalkeeper with a right footer in the 13th minute.
The Kerala goal fell again in the 36th minute when Leander Cunha found Liston with a through ball and the striker easily beat his marker to bury the ball into far corner of the net.
After surviving an early scare in the second half when Aaren D’Silva failed to connect a cross from Brian, Kerala went on to dominate its opponent. It created several chances and Rahul Raj pulled one back in the 61st minute when he found the net with a header in a goal mouth melee following a corner.
Goa survived the Kerala attacks in the final minutes to move into the final.
Earlier, 31-time champion West Bengal entered the final for the first time in six years after defeating Mizoram 6-5 in sudden death.
Goalkeeper Sankar Roy turned out to be the Bengal’s hero as he made two saves in tie-breaker. Roy stopped penalties taken by his counterpart Muanawma and Lalbaikhula as West Bengal won 6-5 in sudden death.
The teams failed to score during the regular time and 30 minutes of extra-time. The Bengal defence kept a clean slate again and so far Bengal has not conceded a goal during regular play.
Mizoram must be ruing the chances it missed including the two chances the team got in the dying minutes of extra time.
During regular play, the defensive wall put up by West Bengal’s back four was hard to penetrate.
The result: Semifinals: Bengal 6 (Rana Gharami, Manvir Singh, Samad Ali Mallick, Mumtaz Akthar, S.K. Faiz, Moirangthem Basanta Singh) bt Mizoram 5 (Lalrammawia, Ramfangzauva, Lalrammuanpuia, Lalrinchhana, Lalchhuanawma).
Goa 2 (Liston Colaco 13, 36) bt Kerala 1 (Rahul Raj 61).
