I-League 2017: Bengaluru FC 1-1 Minerva Punjab FC, Blues falter at home against newcomers
Bengaluru FC played out an exciting 1-1 draw against Minerva Punjab at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium.
For a nail-biter of a football match, it sure did start in the exact opposite manner.
"West Block are the coolest fans in India @Minerva FC" read a banner unveiled by players of the visiting Punjabi outfit. As awesome as the Kop is, can you envisage a Hull City, or a Burnley, doing something of the sort?
It set the tone for an opening half hour that Bengaluru FC dominated with contemptuous ease - Watson sitting deep between his two central defenders and pinging balls hither and thither like a classic regista. It didn't always pay off, though, and we saw only glimpses of the kind of tidy passages of play that Roca envisages his team playing.
CK Vineeth playing as the tip of a front three, looked dangerous in these early stages - his pace troubling the Nigerian centre-back partnership of Kareem Nurain and Loveday Okechukwu on more than one occasion and it almost paid off very early on when he was through on goal in the 9th minute, but an excellent tackle from Arashpreet Singh kept the scores level.
A Lenny Rodrigues shot that went out off his own player and a Vineeth shot-cum-cross that caused a measure of panic in the Minerva box was sandwiched by Minerva's sole attempt on target in that period - Souvik Das mishitting a thirty yarder that trickled lovingly into the hands of Amrinder.
It was a scrap fest that looked headed nowhere, but then in the 31st minute, Arashpreet decided that enough was enough - he was here to fight and not play a training session with the defending champions of India. It wasn't a great tackle, to be honest, and his booking was well deserved, but it did do the job of sparking the game into life.
Also Read: I-league 2017: Bengaluru FC - the midfield conundrum
From the resulting free kick, Sena Ralte played the ball to an unmarked Sunil Chhetri whose superb flick-on kissed the bar and landed tantalisingly outside the goal line - from where it was hacked away by a desperate Minerva defence. There had been a lot of secrecy surrounding the set-practices that Bengaluru had been honing, and it almost paid off here.
Minerva came roaring back, though, and for the first time had a purposeful attempt on target in the 34th minute when their captain - a hulking centre-back who wears no. 10 - Kareem Nurain leathered a shot that whizzed past inches above the junction of the crossbar and the post.
The fact that Minerva finally turned up was emphasised when the referee took a minute to tell off Surinder and his colleagues - they had swarmed the technical area (where generally only the manager is allowed), with six men shouting instructions in everything from chaste Punjabi to broken English.
In the second half, Roca tinkered with the formation and put out his Blues in a 4-2-3-1 with Lenny dropping in to play alongside Watson and Chhetri pulling into the trequartista role. And this move paid dividends within seven minutes.
Udanta sold Arashpreet down the river on the right, before drifting in a lovely ball to the far post. Loveday Okechukwu got his head to it, but it was played straight at Chhetri, and from just outside the box the captain of India hammered an acrobatic attempt into the bottom corner.
It was, by any definition, a sublime goal. A goal well worthy of equalling the record for most number of goals in Indian league football - Bhaichung Bhutia's magical 89.
This opened the game up - with Minerva being forced to move forward from their tight unit of the preceding 52 minutes, Bengaluru started to pick them apart. Just before the hour mark Udanta Singh - arguably the player of the match - almost made them pay when he played in an overlapping Harmanjot Singh Khabra with a delicious scoop, but the Punjabi's powerful shot flew just high.
Minerva, though, were not about to give up the ghost. Victor Amobi was taken off for Ivan Filatov and the tall Kazakh almost made an immediate impact when he created havoc in the BFC box competing for a well placed Anirudh Thapa corner - Amrinder's reach, and calm head, keeping his team out of trouble.
Udanta, though, was irrepressible. He mugged Arashpreet once again before crossing to the quiet Eugeneson Lyngdoh whose stooping header went well wide. Udanta then decided to make Kareem his next victim and sat the Nigerian down before playing a tantalising ball across the box. Vineeth's sliding boot missed it by a matter of centimeters.
It is what he did next, though, that truly caught the imagination. Receiving a brilliant crossfield ball from Chhetri, he controlled it with a lovely touch of his instep before making Arashpreet he had never taken the flight to Bangalore (yet again). Having cut them wide open, he drifted onto his left foot and with the goal at his mercy, blasted it well wide.
It was then that things took a surprising turn. Kamalpreet Singh's hopeful cross completely befuddled everyone in the box, and took a (un)lucky bounce off Sandesh Jhingan that rendered Amrinder Singh helpless. The celebration - manager, players, staff all huddled together - showed just how much it meant for the Punjab team.
What followed was wave after wave of relentless Bengaluru FC attack - Udanta Singh and Sunil Chhetri at the very heart of it, but the red fortress held strong - thanks to some brave defending, and aided by some lackadaisical finishing.
At the end, the mood of the night was perfectly captured by the West Block Blues - having started singing "Minerva West Block" in appreciation of the banner, they ended up with the far less welcome "F*** you Minerva"