Mumbai City’s foreign stars shine to win 3-1 against Bengaluru

Mumbai City regained the top spot in the 2021-22 Indian Super League points table with a 3-1 win over Bengaluru courtesy of goals from Igor Angulo, Mourtada Fall, and Ygor Catatau.

Mumbai City head coach Des Buckingham name an unchanged starting XI after a morale-boosting 5-1 win against 10-men ATK Mohun Bagan with Cassinho playing in the hole behind Angulo.

On the other hand, Bengaluru manager Marco Pezzaiouli made a couple of changes to the team that drew 1-1 against Kerala Blasters in the Southern Derby. Price Ibara was handed a start as Udanta Singh made way for the star striker whilst Iman Basafa was replaced by Jayesh Rane in the Blues starting XI.

Inside the first 25 seconds of the match, Cleiton Silva struck the crossbar signaling Bengaluru’s intent to match the attacks of Mumbai City from toe to toe. 

In the eighth minute, the Blues failed to clear the ball in time and Alan Costa ended up handling the ball inside his own penalty area gifting a penalty kick to the Islanders. Angulo scored his 4th goal of the ongoing ISL campaign as the Spaniard stepped up and slotted the ball past Gurpreet Singh Sandhu.

Naorem Roshan found Jayesh Rane with a beautiful cross and the midfielder’s blistering strike swerved wide of Mohamad Nawaz’s goal. A few minutes later, Silva smartly won a free-kick outside the Mumbai City penalty area and slotted the ball in the back of the net past the diving figure of Nawaz as the 2018-19 ISL champions equalized before the clock could strike 20 minutes into the match.

At the half-hour mark, Silva could have put the ball in the back of his own net as he deflected an Ahmed Jahouh free-kick towards his goal and the Bengaluru custodian had to bail him out with a decent save.

In the 43rd minute, Mandar Rao Dessai made an absolute mess of an easy clearance and ended up bringing down substitute Edmund Lalrindika inside the penalty area gifting a ‘penalty kick’ back to the Blues. However, Sunil Chhetri’s low drive towards the left corner was brilliantly saved by Nawaz denying the Indian skipper to equalize Coro’s record of most ISL goals.

At half-time, Buckingham made his first substitution of the evening as last match’s hero Vikram Pratap Singh made way for the experienced Raynier Fernandes to take more control of the midfield battles.

Jahouh’s deliveries from set-pieces continued to be a threat for Pezzaiouli’s side in the second period as the midfielder found Fall with a precise ball and the central defender headed it over Sandhu in the Bengaluru goal for the Islanders’ second goal of the night.

Fernandes made a smart driving run into the Bengaluru area but Sandhu was equal to the midfielder’s shot keeping Bengaluru into the match. On the other end of the pitch, Chhetri tried to redeem himself with a smart header into the path of Rane whose shot was kept out of the net by Nawaz courtesy of a brilliant diving effort.

After several attempts of finding the fourth goal of the evening, Mandar Rao Dessai crossed the ball in for Angulo who struck the post and Catatau had the easy task of scoring the rebound thus sealing the match result in the 85th minute.

Bengaluru continued its topsy-turvy start to the 2021-22 ISL campaign and now face the well-drilled Hyderabad side on Wednesday whilst reigning champions Mumbai City faces Jamshedpur on Thursday.