Bengaluru, March 11 (IANS) Lallianzuala Chhangte and Nikolaos Karelis scored a goal each as Mumbai City FC qualified for the playoffs of the Indian Super League (ISL) 2024-25 with a 2-0 win against Bengaluru FC at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium here on Tuesday night. The Islanders thus finished the league season at the sixth spot with 36 points, whereas the Gerard Zaragoza-coached side ended its league campaign with 38 points.
The Islanders were blazing across the Bengaluru FC backline from the onset. Their entire attacking unit came to the fore and functioned in coordination, with Jorge Ortiz receiving a pass from Lallianzuala Chhangte inside the 18-yard box and rattling the crossbar with a left-footed shot.
The visitors threw bodies forward, with Nikolaos Karelis heading just past the post from the six-yard box. However, Karelis finally struck home with a slick pass for Chhangte in the penalty area, which the captain slotted from very close range into the middle of the net to open the scoring in the eighth minute with his right foot.
Bengaluru FC tried to execute a different strategy to equalise. Ryan Williams and Vinith Venkatesh pulled off shots from outside the box around the 28th-minute mark, but the Islanders regathered their shape to block those efforts in time. Karelis showed impressive awareness to earn a penalty with his fleet footedness and stepped up to convert the spot-kick with a strike into the bottom right corner in the 38th minute to double the advantage.
Chhangte and Ortiz connected in the final third again in the 56th minute, with the former supplying a probing delivery that the Spaniard tried to deposit into the net from a close distance, but to no avail.
Sunil Chhetri undertook the responsibility to claw the Blues back into the encounter, barging into the Mumbai City FC box and laying up a headed pass for Edgar Mendez, which was struck slightly past the right post in the 67th minute.
Chhangte kept hitting back, donning a free-flowing role wherein he was both the creator of chances and also assumed the responsibility to try and hammer those opportunities. In the 79th minute, he trusted Vikram Partap Singh to try his luck from a distance but the attacker’s shot was saved in the top right corner. The team still walked away with three points, securing a spot in the top six eventually.
Both Mumbai City FC and Bengaluru FC will be playing in the playoffs next.
–IANS
bsk/