ISL: Chennaiyin FC 5-1 Mumbai City FC - 5 talking points
Chennaiyin FC put five past Mumbai City FCChennaiyin FC rebounded from their heavy defeat at the hands of Delhi in fine style by thumping fancied Mumbai City FC in front of a raucous home crowd. Elano and John Mendoza inspired Abhishek Bachchan’s team to a handsome three points that takes them to second in the table. For the home side, a five-star performance saw them punch in five wonderfully taken goals while there was more misery on their travels from the team from Mumbai. Here were the five major talking points from the game:
#1 Elano has magic in his boots
If there was one man who left his impressions all over this match, it was Chennai’s No.7 Elano. The Brazilian put in a virtuoso performance for his team, netting two goals - the first from the spot to set his team on the way and the second a well-executed free-kick, their lone goal in the second half. Goals apart, he ripped Mumbai’s defence to shreds with his passing and ran circles around them. Nine out of every 10 passes that left his feet found their target and helped his team make inroads into the visitors’ defence and rack up more shots on goal despite having lesser possession.
He has been simply superb so far in the tournament and now sits atop the goalscorers’ chart with 5 goals. It was indeed surprising when he was all together left out of Brazil’s squad for this year’s World Cup especially since he’d been part of their triumphant Confederations Cup campaign. The high point of his night came during his second goal which had an element of theatre to it as if he had scripted it himself. He asked the crowd to pump up the volume just before he took the free-kick, and what do you know, a few seconds later the ball had nestled in the back of the net.