BFC rekindle AFC romance

Bengaluru: Bengaluru FC continued their romance with the AFC Cup as they put the domestic troubles behind to produce an inspired second half show and rally to a 2-1 win over Mohun Bagan in their Group E opener at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium on Tuesday.

Two set piece goals in the second half from Sandesh Jhingan and Sunil Chhetri scripted the comeback after Katusmi Yusa’s first half penalty.

Albert Roca made two changes in the squad with CK Vineeth coming in for Eugeneson Lyngdoh while Salaam Ranjan Singh started at the back with Juanan moving to the left. Bagan, meanwhile, started with Jeje Lalpekhlua ahead of Darryl Duffy.

The visitors played to force mistakes from the home side as they had a first wave of pressure from four players up front while the rest contained the situation.

It very nearly worked as neither Arindam Bhattacharja nor the defence looked comfortable and the former was forced into a couple of nearly calamitous errors.

The first came in the fifth minute when he nonchalantly lofted the ball to Yusa and was saved by a back peddling Salaam and John Johnson. He did a similar scene 21 minutes later, this time finding Norde, but Balwant Singh couldn’t make the most of the pull back.

Meanwhile, Sanjoy Sen introduced the versatile Prabir Das at left back in place of Subhasish Bose before the half hour to tackle the pacy Udanta Singh. BFC, for their part, failed to control the midfield in the first half.

The opener came in the 36th minute when Norde was brought down in the box by Jhingan and Yusa, who often swapped wings with the Haitian, stepped up to dispatch the penalty into the bottom left corner. Arindam dived correctly but was undone by the precision of the strike.

Blues show
renewed vigour

The second half saw Lenny Rodrigues replaced by Lyngdoh, who provided much needed control and calm in the middle, and the home side coming out with renewed vigour and focus, changing the game in a six-minute spell.

First, in the 51st minute, Jhingan, running late into the box, rectified his error from early on by side footing Cameron Watson’s corner through a sea of players into the net. Then, Chhetri gave a timely reminder of his set-piece prowess by finding the bottom corner, through the wall, from a freekick conceded rather naively by goalkeeper Shilton Paul.

With Yusa substituted, Bagan failed to replicate their first-half performance as BFC grew into the match and controlled much of the play. Daniel Lalhlimpuia failed to convert a cross from Udanta from inside the six yard box even as last season’s finalist found the net again only to be ruled out for a foul on the goalkeeper.