Scorers K. Anees and Sydney Rodrigues at the Salt Lake Stadium, Monday. Picture by Santosh Ghosh.

Calcutta: Vasco had arrived in the city struggling to avoid relegation in the National Football League. Two matches later, they go back with six valuable points in their kitty that has not only restored confidence in the players, but also raised hopes of staying afloat in the League.

After upsetting Mohun Bagan, the Goan outfit came back from a goal down to beat Tollygunge Agragami 2-1 at the Salt Lake Stadium on Monday for the ONGC Cup. Surajit Bose had put the local outfit ahead but the visitors restored parity through Sidney Rodrigues. Substitute K. Anees struck the winning goal.

Vasco now have eight points from 10 matches while Tollygunge have 11 from as many games.

Trailing by a goal till the breather, Vasco went all out in the second session noticing the chinks in the rival defence. The absence of three of their top players, through bookings and office engagements, took a heavy toll on the performance. Suley Musah?s best efforts were not enough to pull the side out of the rut.

In the end, Tollygunge coach Biswajit Das was left rueing the lack of bench strength.

Tollygunge had started on an impressive note, taking the lead in the 18th minute. Musah?s free-kick hardly seemed dangerous as it landed in the penalty box and as Vasco players delayed in clearing, Surajit was quick to pounce on that with a perfect header.

Minutes later, Surajit was tackled from behind inside the box but referee Bharat Mani of Karnataka chose to ignore the incident.

Midway through the session, Vasco took charge. Alex Ambrose and Sidney Rodrigues stretched the rival defence while Man-of-the-Match Sushanth Mathew played the stellar role in the midfield. Sidney was unlucky as his left-footer beat goalie Arindam Ghosh and kissed the near post before going out of harm?s way.

However, he made amends in the 64th minute when his free-kick hit the human wall and ballooned over an advancing Arindam into the net.Tollygunge?s resistance was almost over by then and the winning goal came ten minutes later. Sidney was up again, this time his long ranger finding Anees inside the box. The latter was quick to place it past an advancing goalie.

TEAMS

VASCO SC: Virender Singh, Nicolau Colaco, Agnelo Colaco, Vinu Jose, Avinash Thapa (K. Anees, 62 min), Denis Cabral, Sushanth Mathew, Menino Fernandes, K. Ajayan, Alex Ambrose, Sidney Rodrigues.

TOLLYGUNGE AGRAGAMI: Arindam Ghosh, Amitava Chanda, Debkumar Sashmal, Isiaka Awoyemi, Saumik Dey, Chinmoy Sarkar (Mohammed Rafique, 55; Santosh Singh, 87), Suley Musah, Suman Datta, Ramu Adhikari (Suman Ghosh, 78), Surajit Bose, Akeem Abolanle.

Referee: Bharat Mani (Karnataka).