Mumbai, 27 Oct: Odisha FC and Mumbai City FC settled for a point each in a fast-paced and gritty 1-1 draw in their Indian Super League (ISL) match here on Sunday.
\nGoals by talismanic strikers Roy Krishna (14th minute) for Odisha FC and Nikolaos Karelis (23rd) for Mumbai resulted in both teams sharing the honours.
\nThe game got off to a cracking start and wrapped up under similarly intensified circumstances, but the intermediate period was a slightly cagey affair with both sides engaging in a clash of tactical supremacy.
\nSergio Lobera was the happier of the two coaches at the onset of the game, with his frontline pressing forward and inflicting pressure on the Mumbai City FC defence.
\nTheir charge was led by Fijian forward Roy Krishna, spearheading by example and he reaped the rewards for the same in the 14th minute.
\nAs the Islanders looked to build from the back, Valpuia played a lobbed pass to goalkeeper Phurba Lachenpa.
\nThe custodian brought the ball down but was unable to keep control over the possession, and Krishna lapped upon the opportunity by sprinting ahead, getting the ball back and simply placing it into the back of the net to help the Juggernauts get ahead in the game.
\nThe home team got their act back together almost immediately afterwards though. Their attacking unit began functioning in the trademark manner, with Lallianzuala Chhangte taking the ball ahead and squaring up passes at the centre for the striker or the onrushing midfielders.
\nHis interlinking with Karelis was a treat for the home fans, and one such move brought them the equaliser in the 23rd minute.
\nChhangte, near the goal-line, pierced through the Odisha FC backline with a sharp delivery that was met perfectly by Karelis, who simply had to get his foot at the ball to help it land past Amrinder Singh and drag the Petr Kratky-coached team back in the game.
\nFormer Mumbai City star Amrinder was sublime in the second half, first helping them deny Chhangte\u2019s slick effort in the 61st minute.
\nEight minutes later, PN Noufal and Jon Toral tested Amrinder\u2019s reflexes, catching the Odisha FC backline off-guard with their link up in the final third. Toral had abundant space to strike the ball home but his shot was firmly saved by Amrinder, keeping Odisha FC\u2019s hopes afloat.
\nMidfielder Ahmed Jahouh\u2019s sending off in the 80th minute presented a new challenge for the Juggernauts, but they held their nerves to see off the game without any hiccups and get a draw on the road. (PTI)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mumbai, 27 Oct: Odisha FC and Mumbai City FC settled for a point each in a fast-paced and gritty 1-1 draw in their Indian Super League (ISL) match here on Sunday. Goals by talismanic strikers Roy Krishna (14th minute) for Odisha FC and Nikolaos Karelis (23rd) for Mumbai resulted in both teams sharing the honours. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-251343","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251343\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}