AGENCIES, BHUBANESWAR: I-League champions, Chennai City FC emerged 4-2 victors over Indian Super League (ISL) outfit, FC Pune City in a thrilling pre-quarter final encounter at the Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar on Sunday evening.
The Stallions midfield comprising of Adil Khan and Marko Stankovic held control in attack and defense, giving hardly any space to the likes of Pedro Javier Manzi and Néstor Gordillo to work with.
The Chennai attack had been quite until then, but somehow managed to break through the reasonably sound Stallions rearguard to open the scoring. Néstor exchanged some neat passes on I-League champions’ left-hand side and ran at will towards the backtracking Pune defense before picking out Ameerudeen Mohaideeen on the right.
The forward squared the ball leaving Manzi to do the rest.
His and Chennai’s second came shortly afterwards as Néstor turned on a second ball and immediately released the no.19, who turned Matt Mills inside-out before slotting the ball past a helpless Kamaljit Singh. The Stallions looked to be stunned by then but were back in the tie five minutes later.
Chennai defender, Gaurav Bora was caught on the ball by Marcelo, after which he slammed the ball past Boerchio leaving the scoreboard at 2-1 in favor of the Hero I-League champions going into the break.
Minutes into the second 45 and Chennai City found themselves a man down. Defender Charles Lourdusamy went in with his studs up against Hume and in doing so, fouled the Pune no.7 following which the referee gave him his marching orders.
Up at the other end, Marcelo stormed his way past four defenders into the Chennai box. Bora was unsuccessful in legally handing the Brazilian’s trickery and fouled him, for which he was then penalized. Stankovic stepped up to take the spot-kick and converted with ease.
The Pune equalizer spurred Chennai on and were rewarded for their adventure right at the hour mark. Adil used too much of his body on one of the opposition attackers in his own box, giving the referee another opportunity to award a penalty. The prolific Manzi stepped out and dually obliged to hand his team the advantage.
Pune rallied on to make their numerical advantage count, risking men forward and leaving the dangerous Manzi with all the room to roam in. Fifteen minutes later, they were made to rue that choice.
The Spaniard, after being released by Néstor, ran at the Stallions defense and looked to feed it back to his countrymen, who smartly dummied the pass to allow another Spaniard, Sandro Rodriguez to get on the scoresheet.
