Hyderabad FC Hold Tight, Beat Bengaluru 1-0

Goa: Hyderabad FC registered their second win of the 2021-22 Indian Super League season after a nervous end at Bambolim on Wednesday. Bartholomew Ogbeche scored seven minutes into the game, finding the net for the third consecutive game.

This was also HFC’s first clean sheet of this league season and was their first victory over the Blues in the ISL. Hyderabad FC now has seven points in four games and is 3^rd in the league table.

Manolo Marquez made quite a few changes to starting XI, giving starts to Javi Siverio and Rohit Danu for the first time in the ISL. And it was a confident start from the men in yellow who took very little time to test the BFC backline.

And the breakthrough arrived just seven minutes in after Akash Mishra’s dazzling run and pass found Bart Ogbeche in space at the edge of the box. The Nigerian striker who has been in fine form but needed a slight Bengaluru deflection to take his shot past Gurpreet Singh who was left helpless.

Hyderabad managed the game well not only till half-time, restricting Bengaluru to zero shots on target till the hour mark.

But as Marco Pezzaiuoli’s men pushed hard for an equalizer, the HFC backline was under pressure for the last half-hour. The likes of Cleiton Silva, Jayesh Rane and Sunil Chhetri had their chances but the Hyderabad boys managed to keep calm and pulled out some impressive blocks to deny Bengaluru a clear shot at Laxmikant Kattimani’s goal.

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Kattimani had a couple of routine saves to make apart from a late, late shot that he parried away. He and his defense did well to keep away the threat of the Bengaluru attack and keep the first clean sheet of the season for HFC who also secured their first home win.

The likes of Asish Rai, Akash Mishra, Chinglensana Singh, Juanan, Souvik Chakrabarti (the Hero of the Match) and Joao Victor worked as a team at the back and made sure that Hyderabad take home all three points.

Now up to third in the league table, Hyderabad FC is back in action when they take on NorthEast United at Bambolim on Monday, December 13.