A goal in either half - Modou Sogou in the first and Amine Chermiti in the second - helped Mumbai City FC complete the league double over Bengaluru FC in an Indian Super League match at the Mumbai Football Arena on Friday. With the three points, it also propelled itself to fifth on the table with 19 points.
Sportstar reviews the key aspects of the match.
Bengaluru FC self-destructs
The defending champion was undone by a couple of defensive errors that denied it the chance to move to the summit. With nine goals conceded, it has the best defensive record in the league, but mistakes from goalkeeper Gurpreet Singh Sandhu and Harmanjot Khabra were uncharacteristic for a team that has kept six clean sheets and been defensively solid for much of the season.
In the first half, Gurpreet rushed off his line and left the goal unguarded as Rowllin Borges picked out Sogou with a long ball. Nishu Kumar didn't contest the aerial ball and Sogou, with the goal gaping, kept his header on target and put Mumbai 1-0 up.
In the second half, Amine Chermiti latched onto Khabra's intended backpass and finished from close range, sending Gurpreet the wrong way.
Conceding the second goal just before the hour-mark dispirited Bengaluru FC and it didn't pose much of a goal threat after that.
Mumbai City's game-plan works to perfection
Defend deep, frustrate Bengaluru, go long and direct when you turn over possession: this was essentially how Mumbai City set up, and it paid off. Captain and goalkeeper Amrinder Singh had to make only one save throughout the 90 minutes and the normally incisive Bengaluru attack was, for the large part, blunted.
While Bengaluru's poor defending contributed to Mumbai scoring, Sogou's first-half goal came from a long ball from Borges, causing confusion in the Bengaluru defence. The second goal, too, came from a defensive mistake but it was another long ball from midfield that brought about the defensive error from Khabra.
Mumbai players got physical and wound up their Bengaluru counterparts, leading to Delgado and Sunil Chhetri being booked for kicking out and dissent respectively.
Refereeing comes under scanner, again
At 1-0 down, Bengaluru had the ball in the net only for the linesman on the far side to flag for offside. Chhetri managed to get on the end of Delgado's longball and finished from a tight angle but, much to Bengaluru's dismay, saw the offside flag go up and disallow the goal.
Chhetri timed his run to perfection and was level with Sarthak Golui when Delgado played the pass, but it was a moment of misjudgment from the linesman, denying the defending champion the equaliser.
It's the latest in a long list of refereeing errors this season and, on the night, it altered the course of the match.
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