First half goals from talismanic imports Modou Sougou and Amine Chermiti helped Mumbai City FC get a cherished home win over the champions Bengaluru FC in the Indian Super League. The result also means that the Islanders managed to do the double over the Sunil Chhetri led franchise, bumping them up to fifth place in the league.
Having lost their previous two games against Odisha FC and ATK respectively, Jorge Costa’s were visibly low on confidence as the visitors dominated the early exchanges. Mumbai however were very organised and compact in their defence, restricting Bengaluru to a few long range shots. The skipper and Ashique Kuruniyan had a couple of shots from distance, but they failed to really test Amrinder Singh.
Lucky breaks for Mumbai City
The Islanders got a helping hand from the visitors for both of their goals, with a couple of defensive mistakes aiding them to get back to winning ways. For a first goal, a long pass over the defence from Rowllin Borges seemed destined to fall into the arms of the Bengaluru keeper, but Gurprit Singh Sandhu misjudged the flight of the ball which in turn allowed Sougou to head it into an unmanned net.
For the second goal, it was Borges who once again caused panic in the opposition defence. A looping through ball’s trajectory was well spotted by a Bengaluru defender, but a misguided header meant that the ball fell kindly to an unmarked Chermiti, who unabashedly slotted home from close range to give Mumbai City a two goal cushion.
Apart from that, Mumbai City also were on the right end of two astute refereeing decisions, as the visitors had two of their goals docked for offside.
The win means that Bengaluru City are still searching for their first win over a Jorge Costa managed Mumbai City, with the islanders enjoying the better of this rivalry. The Mumbai-Bengaluru clashes have also become feisty, with tensions flaring in this game and one can expect the rest of the ISL season to be similarly fiery as the battle for a qualifier spot intensifies.
Feature image: Twitter/ MumbaiCityFc
