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Bengaluru FC have hardly put a foot wrong in this season ISL and they reaffirmed their authority on Sunday by beating Jamshedpur FC 2-0 at the Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar to cement their position at the top of the table. This was the seventh away victory for Albert Roca's and the most interesting fact is that they have scored a huge number of goals on road, 20 to be exact.
Usual suspects Miku and Sunil Chhetri were the scorers on the night as Jamshedpur were left to rue their luck due to some poor refereeing and defending. Let's take a look at the talking points from the game:
#1 Miku scores from an offside position
Venezuelan striker Miku scored his 13th goal of the season from the spot, after Jamshedpur goalkeeper Subrata Paul had brought him down in the box illegally. However, the bigger question here is whether Miku should have been allowed to enter the penalty box at all.
Jamshedpur defence was caught off guard in the 23rd minute when a through ball found its way to Miku who took it under control and scooted ahead in an attempt to score. Jamshedpur defenders weren’t happy with the fact that Miku wasn't off-sided and replays proved them right as it clearly showed that the forward was ahead of the last man, Tiri when the ball was played to him.
That was a big moment in the game as Jamshedpur has done well to not concede until that point and had the right decision been made, who knows the result of the game might have been something different.
#2 Chhetri makes Jamshedpur defenders look silly
Sunil Chhetri, being short in height, is the last man on the pitch who is expected to score by virtue of a header and that too from a corner. But he did just that in Sunday’s game and the Jamshedpur defenders would be cursing themselves for allowing the BFC captain to increase his tally to 10 in this season.
When Bengaluru got a corner in the 34th minute of the game, all the Jamshedpur players were busy marking the tall BFC footballers but Chhetri was hanging around in the middle of the box. As soon as the corner was taken, he made a darting run towards the first bar and flicked the ball towards the BFC goal without being challenged. Subrata Paul had nothing to do as the ball nestled into the back of the net.
#3 Gurpreet's splendid double save
Gurpreet Singh Sandhu proved his class not once but twice in a matter of microseconds to keep his citadel unharmed on Sunday. He made a double save against all odds to frustrate the Jamshedpur players who were looking to come back in the game early in the second half.
In the 47th minute, Andre Bikey poked a ball on goal from a few yards out but Gurpreet was placed in the right position to parry it away. However, the danger wasn’t cleared as the rebound fell to Jerry Mawihmingthanga who slid forward to send it goalwards again but Gurpreet dived full stretch to his left to keep that effort out too.
That was another big moment in the game and had that gone in, Jamshedpur would have fought with full motivation to get a result out of this game.
#4 Anas suffers freak injury
Steve Coppell surely didn’t have the luck on his side as his tactics for the second half was somewhat affected by Anas Edathodika’s freak injury. The defender was brought on for Sumeet Passi at restart so that he could assert his presence and control the defence line while being a threat in set-piece situations up front. However, things didn’t take shape according to the plan as Anas twisted his ankle in the 55th minute and had to replaced by Mehtab Hossain. That robbed Coppell of a potential substitution and that too at a time when the hosts were trailing 0-2 in this crucial fixture.
#5 Kalinga Stadium passes test with full marks
There’s a reason why Odisha in being considered as the best sporting destination of the country. After showcasing top class infrastructural facilities in the field of hockey, the eastern state of India hosted its first ISL game at the Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar and the authorities must be given full marks for the arrangements.
From the quality of the pitch to the overall seating arrangement in the stadium, everything was more than perfect which made the game much more interesting as a viewer. Jamshedpur FC was using Kalinga Stadium as their home ground and it must be said that this arena is way better than their actual home stadium, JRD Tata Sports Complex in Jamshedpur.
