ISL 2017: FC Pune City vs Bengaluru FC, 5 Talking Points
Bengaluru FC secured their fourth win in five games against FC Pune City in Thursday's crunch ISL encounter. The home side took the lead but played with 10 men for more than thirty minutes of the match. BFC made the most of it and eventually won the encounter 3-1.
Here are the major talking points from tonight's match.
No Marcelinho? No Problem
For the second time this season, FC Pune City benched their star man Marcelinho. Up against table toppers, Bengaluru FC, Pune were in for a real challenge and restricting the Brazilian to the bench didn't look like the best move at first.
Pune were intelligent, calm and composed on the ball. They made regular inroads into Bengaluru's half and had no trouble in regularly testing BFC's back line.
The likes of Alfaro, Isaac and Deigo Carlos looked extremely confident and combined well on more than one occasion. One wondered if Pune would be able to truly test Bengaluru with their star man on the bench? The Maharashtrian outfit showed they are in no way dependent on one man.
It was a pity, however, that they went down to 10 men after Baljit Sahni's red card, something that BFC capitalised upon, to score three late goals.