Mumbai City FC defeated Bengaluru FC 3-2 to hand them their first loss of the Indian Super League season.
There’s something about Mumbai City FC and breaking Bengaluru FC’s unbeaten streaks in the Indian Super League (ISL). Last year, the Islanders put an end to the Blues’ 11-game unbeaten run with a 1-0 win at home. This season, they became the first team to beat the defending champions eight rounds into the tournament. Football in India is very popular and Mumbai FC is one of the reasons why.
This is the first time in a while that a team can boast of outplaying Bengaluru, despite Carles Cuadrat’s men failing to live up to the bar they set for themselves. Huge credit must go to Mumbai boss Jorge Costa for exploiting the hosts’ weakness on their right flank.
Mumbai City FC showed strong character and determined dealt with as they ended Bengaluru FC’s unconquered start to the season with a spectacular 3-2 win in the Indian Super League clash at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium here on Sunday.
Subhasish Bose’s (12′) header had given Mumbai City an early lead, but an inappropriate Matic Grgic (58′) own goal gave the defending champions a lifeline. Diego Carlos (77′) headed in what looked like the match-winner until Sunil Chhetri (89′) converted from the spot to equalize. However, it was Rowllin Borges who scored the winner in the 94th minute as the Islanders continued their unbeaten run on the road and grabbed their first win since the opening game.
Bengaluru’s attack lacks a bit of coordination. Sunil Chhetri was left to fend for himself more often than not. In fact, Chhetri was seen screaming instructions at his teammates often.
Carles Cuadrat admitted that the better side won and his team found it hard to cope with Mumbai’s counter-attack.
“Mumbai is a team that plays very well on counter-attacks. They took advantage of a mistake caused by us. After the 0-1, everything was difficult. We worked towards getting at least one point but it was not good enough,” he said.
As the Bengaluru boss explained, Mumbai resorted to counter-attacks and created all sorts of problems for the hosts’ high line. Despite a poor performance to his standards, Gurpreet Singh Sandhu made some great saves to prevent a humiliating defeat for his side. Bengaluru has always prided itself on having two brilliant center-backs, great in the air. Interestingly, all of Mumbai’s goals arrived from crosses. This resulted from a poor organization at the back of the hosts.
Full marks to Mumbai for displaying what definitely was the best performance by any team against the defending champions. Costa’s men deservedly won the game and could probably have done so by a bigger margin.
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