Katsumi Yusa headed home a beauty in the 49th minute as Chennai City scored a 1-0 win over a young Indian Arrows side in an I-League clash at the Nehru Stadium in Coimbatore on Wednesday.
The first session was more of a midfield battle. Both teams probably wanted to play it safe than striking it hard. But the crowd had come in good numbers expecting the host to go full throttle as it did against Kolkata giant Mohun Bagan last week.
Chennai City could not afford to do that as it missed the services of its skipper Roberto Eslava and Charles Anandraj, who had picked yellow cards in the earlier matches and were suspended for the day’s clash. It hurt the team’s chances much.
So, the responsibility of steering the team through rested on the shoulders of B. Sriram, who was given the captain’s armband. The home side coach Akbar Nawas also did a bit of tweaking to its 4-3-3 formation by retaining the holding player in midfield and causing the striker to play a little deeper in a role known as the false nine. But it did no good and the team ended the first session with nothing much to boast about except for one miss by Adolfo Miranda in the final minute of the half.
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Katsumi stole the ball from the Arrows’ centre-back and squared it to Adolfo but the Spanish star failed to fire it into the net.
The second half saw the Chennai men a transformed lot. They attacked from the start and even managed to find the back of the net quite early through Katsumi, who grabbed a rebound of his own header that hit the bar and packed it into the net much to the joy of the team.
Pepped up by the goal, Chennai City further pressed the pedal in a bid to score more but in vain.
After back-to-back defeats, the win came as a welcome relief for the team.
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