After a dominating performance against the former league leaders, Mumbai City FC, the Men of Steel returned to face Bengaluru FC. The clash between the two was also the final game of the season for both sides as they stepped up to the pitch with the intention to take away the 3 points and finish their season strong.
The clash kicked-off with an energetic approach by both sides. The first 10 minutes saw attempts by David Grande with a header on target and Sunil Chhetri with a strong shot towards the goal but the men between the sticks made sure they kept the ball off the goal line. Jamshedpur, without wasting any time, broke the deadlock in under 16 minutes with a goal from a freekick set-piece. Aitor whipped the ball in from the left flank in the box towards the far post and Stephen Eze who was waiting for the ball at the far post, got a perfect head on the ball to take an early advantage over the Blues.
With a goal’s advantage in the first 20 minutes, Jamshedpur seemed very confident on the field as they kept coming in with attacks from all sides of the pitch to extend their lead over the opposition. They were all over Bengaluru FC and did a good job to keep their attackers at bay. The Men of Steel took the lead even higher with another goal by Len Doungel. Farukh with the ball in the midfield, passed it to Len to the right side of the pitch. Len with a smooth first touch and a skill to confuse his marker, took the ball further into the box and pulled the trigger towards the goal from a narrow angle. The ball flew low into the left corner and Len netted the second goal for Jamshedpur and extended the lead even further.
As the Bengaluru squad seemed stunned after letting in 2 chances in the back of the net, the Men of Steel gave another blow to the visitors with a 3rd goal just a few minutes before the first half came to an end. David Grande struck once again for the Men of Steel with a perfect header to Aitor Monroy’s freekick as the ball went straight into the net to take Jamshedpur to a 3-0 lead. And that’s how the first half came to an end with Jamshedpur leading with 3 goals over the visitors.
The second half began with Bengaluru FC making multiple changes to their squad as they looked to get back in their final game of the season. The two sides made sure the intensity does not go down with increased pace in their attacks on both sides. Bengaluru, with fresh legs on the pitch revived their hopes as they finally invaded the Jamshedpur defence to score their first goal of the game. Francisco Gonzalez with a sharp eye on the ball, headed the ball into the net from a very narrow angle even after Ricky guarded the goal line with TP Rehenesh, but they were unable to block the ball away. The Blues with a goal in the bag, upped their game to get back in the contest as they did not want to suffer a loss in the final game of the season.
The Blues with restored hopes, looked solid in the second half as compared to the first half with numerous attacks towards the Jamshedpur goal. The multiple attempts by the Blues were successful with the second goal in the span of 10 minutes which shook the confident Jamshedpur. Harmanjot Khabra with the ball in the right flank sent in a quick cross into the box to Sunil Chhetri who made a run into the box, looking to bring Bengaluru back and also score his 100th goal in the league. Chhetri got a perfect connection to the cross with a stunning header as the ball flew into the box while TP Rehenesh did not have enough time to dive to keep the ball off the goal line. Sunil Chhetri with his 100th goal in the ISL, brought Bengaluru right back into the game with the score being 3-2.
The fixture soon turned into a nail-biting contest of football with Bengaluru just one goal away from equalising the score after conceding 3 goals in the first 45’ minutes. With just 20 minutes to go for the final whistle, Bengaluru FC went all-out attacking, looking to net an equalising goal in the final moments of the game. Jamshedpur also made multiple changes to their line-up as they needed fresh legs on the pitch to defend away all the chances on goal by the Blues. The visitors had a couple of chances to score the equaliser with a couple of corners from both ends as the Men of Steel made sure they stayed compact to keep the opposition from scoring the 3rd goal. The attempts came very close from heading into the net with a headed attempt from Sunil Chhetri being pushed off the crossbar by TP Rehenesh and a close chance being defended by Narender Gahlot to keep the lead.
The intense contest of football finally came to an end and Jamshedpur successfully denied Bengaluru the equalising goal and saved them from sharing the points. The Men of Steel portrayed yet another strong performance to clinch a close victory and ended their 2020-21 season on a strong note.
