ISL 3: FC Pune city breeze past Atletico de Kolkata to record first home win

by Chittu Shetty November 6, 2016

Coach Antonio Habas led FC Pune City to win against his former side Atletico de Kolkata as the stallions registered their first home win of the season.

Goals from Eduardo Ferreira (41′) and Anibal Zurdo (56′) led FC Pune out of the bottom of ISL table against coach Habas’s former side. Iain Hume’s 69th minute goal from a rebound shot off a missed penalty reduced the deficit but Kolkata failed to find any more breakthrough as they remained at the third spot.

FC pune city started with just one change benching Jesus Tato and lining up in a 4-4-2 formation. Atletico de Kolkata made three changes with Iain Hume Robet Lalthlamuana and Helder Postiga coming in for Javi Lara, Juan Beloncoso and Prabir Das.

In the 8^th minute the visitors had their first chance when Postiga’s shot from some thirty yards breezed past the left corner of the post. Minutes later, the game saw its first of the many yellow cards when Gouramangi Singh was booked for a dangerous and reckless tackle.

In the 18^th minute, Narayan Das’s swinging corner was headed goalbound by Traore in the middle only to be blocked on the line by Stephen Pearson.

In the 27^th minute, Jonatan Lucca’s curling effort whisked past the visitors post. Soon in a dramatic turn of events Eduardo Ferreira and Lalrindika Ralte clashed their heads while going for a header injuring the former. The injury looked dangerous but after a brief patch-up, the defender was back up and out on the pitch.

With a bandage on his face Edurado gave the entire dugout and fans more reason to cheer, when he rose the highest to head a corner ball in to the goal two minutes later.

Minutes before the break, edurado went down in the middle again possibly of a concussion. Habas didn’t risk any injury as edurado was immediately substituted for Tato.

First half ended with FC pune shutting shop for the break as Kolkata failed to break the Pune defence.

Atletico de Kolkata brought in young Bidyananda Singh in place of L Ralte, as they looked to fresh things up.

Five minutes after restart, a superb cross into the box for zurdo was handled by Pritam Kotal or that’s what the referee spotted as he awarded a penalty to Pune City. This resulted in an ugly fight among players as the referee decided to book both Kotal and Narayan Das. Zurdo’s penalty was gloved by the Majumder but the ball deflected into the bottom right corner.

Kolkata were in more trouble when an awry backpass by Soreno was uncharacteristically cleared by Majumder only for the ball to fell for Lenny Rodrigues.  With Majumdar off his line, Lenny tried his luck from 40 yards out but miscued his effort badly as the ball went wide.

Kolkata finally had an opportunity when Postiga was brought down by Mohammed Sissoko in the box. Hume’s resulting penalty was first brilliantly saved by Edel Bete to his right but the Canadian made no mistake in the rebound to slot his 19^th ISL goal of his career.

With the goal margin reduced, Kolkata looked to attack more. But failed to deliver for the majority of the possession they had.

Finally Pune held on to their lead as they lifted themselves out of the bottom of table recording their first home win of the season.

FC Pune City 2 (Edurado 41’, Zurdo 56’) – 1 Atletico de Kolkata (Hume 69’)