After having made Sree Kanteerava stadium a fortress with their entertaining brand of football that yielded many a win, Bengaluru FC suffered their second straight loss at home with a 0-1 defeat to fellow newcomers Jamshedpur FC on Thursday.
Playing their third game in seven days, the Bengaluru unit looked a little jaded and Jamshedpur didn't leave the opportunity to punish them with Trindade Goncalves converting from the spot, the only goal of the game in the final minute of the duel.
On an evening that saw Rahul Bheke play out of his skin to keep the Jamshedpur attackers at bay, it was his mistake in the dying moments that cost Bengaluru dear. The Mumbai-born defender was slow to get on to a goal-bound Sameehg Doutie and in desperation, looked to have pulled him down inside his penalty area, leaving the referee with no choice but to point to the spot. Later, it was just a matter of time as Goncalves sent Bengaluru goalkeeper Gurpreet Singh Sandhu the wrong way to give visitors the all-important win.
Coming into the tie on the back of their first loss at home in over 10 months, Albert Roca was eager to get his side back on winnings ways. And this desire was evident as he reverted to his strongest starting XI with the likes of Erik Paartalu, Udanta Singh and Juan Gonzales returning to the fold. But Roca's men didn't deliver as expected as Jamshedpur had Bengaluru in check throughout the 90 minutes.
It looked like Chennaiyin FC, with their win at Kaneetrava last weekend, showed a way to tackle this free-flowing Bengaluru unit. And on Thursday, Jamshedpur too seemed like following a similar blueprint. They chose to crowd the midfield and barely allowed the Bengaluru midfielders any time on the ball. Every time Paartalu or Delgado would receive the ball, there would be a Jamshedpur player marking them down and not allowing the medios to spray passes as easily as they would have liked.
But whenever Bengaluru did make forays into the Jamshedpur half, their forwards failed to live up to their billing as chances went abegging. Skipper Sunil Chhetri was the first to go close. Found on the other end of a Miku cross, the skipper failed to direct his header towards the goal while Gonzales saw his header of a Delgado cross fly safely into the hands of Subrata Paul in the Jamshedpur goal.
In the second half too, Bengaluru came close to finding the back of the Jamshedpur goal. This time, Delgado saw his volley fly over the crossbar while Chhetri, once again, had his hands over his head after he smashed a sitter right at Paul eight yards from the goal.
These misses, however, came back to haunt the side as Goncalves' made no mistake from the spot to give his side three points from the tie.