Guimaraes miffed with refs again

Halfway through the Indian Super League (ISL) season, the only slip that Mumbai City FC (MCFC) coach Alexandre Guimaraes hasn’t fancied was a loss at home. To add to his ire, his side lost 1-0 against Kerala Blasters FC at the Mumbai Football Arena.

The Costa Rican gaffer was not upset about his team conceding a goal, but the manner in which Pranjal Banerjee, who was officiating the Sunday night fixture, allowed it. After a foul in Mumbai’s half, Kerala was awarded a free kick, and their midfielder Courage Pekuson chose to take it quickly.

A sharp restart is allowed in football, but the referee was dealing with the home team  players’ over the foul, unaware about Pekuson, who was five-odd yards away from him, taking a quick free-kick when the ball was moving. The Mumbai defence was caught off-guard, with Canadian Iain Hume easily slotting the ball past goalkeeper Amrinder Singh.

Flustered by the official’s decision of letting the player take the free kick around five yards away from the spot of the foul, Guimaraes voiced his frustration in the post-match press conference.

“We tried to get over the first goal, which I still don’t understand why was allowed when the ball was five meters away. We tried to recover, which wasn’t easy. We tried to impose our game, and during the whole match, we suffered. Yet we tried to draw via different ways. Now, we can only think of next game versus Bengaluru,” said the coach, furiously.

“Each team tried to play their game. They got the situation, which I spoke of (the goal). In the second half, they made a substitution, trying to have a different approach. But we handled it well and took risks to try to draw. We knocked the door but we couldn’t walk in,” he further added.

Not just Guimaraes, managers from other teams have also questioned the decisions made by the referees in this edition of the ISL, which has featured only Indian referees, unlike the past seasons.

James impressed by travelling fans

Kerala Blasters FC newly appointed manager David James, delighted after his side’s second successive victory, was not bothered by the style in which the team took the lead. “How is that lucky? The referee said it’s okay and we won 1-0. How are we lucky? Iain Hume was taken off the field for no reason. It was 11 vs 10 at one point. We worked hard and I can say we made our own luck. We took our opportunity and put it away,” said James.

A swarm of over 2,000 Kerala fans painted the stadium yellow. As soon as their team raced into the lead, the noise levels went up dramatically and stayed that way until the end. “The fans have been superb again. I know they have a banner that says we ‘make each ground our home’. Today was like a home game for us. It helps when you have fans. When the players are down, they have to get back up and fight, it was tough and the fans were right behind us. Sandesh Jhingan also orchestrated the Viking clap,” he said.