ISL 3: Ten Men Delhi salvage a draw against ATK

by Chittu Shetty November 13, 2016

Down to ten men, Lions twice came from being a goal down to register a vital point against Atletico de Kolkata, opening a two point gap at the top of the table

Milan Singh produced a screamer of a shot to bring Delhi back in to the game.

In an heated encounter that witnessed nine yellow and one red card, Delhi Dynamos, courtesy of Milan and Malouda strike, managed to salvage a draw after Hume and Javi Lara had put Kolkata in front twice in the game. The game saw a red card late in the first half when Badara Badji was shown a second yellow card, minutes before break, for deliberately handling the ball, Later in the second half, Debrajit saved a penalty to deny Malouda a goal.

Delhi started with Ibrahima Niasse and Lalchawnkima coming in defence replacing Ruben Rocha and the injured Chinglensana Singh. Marcos Tebar was replaced by Memo. In the attack, Badara Badji replaced an injured Richard Gadze. For Atletico de Kolkata, Prabhir Das and Tiri replaced Arnab Mondal and Pritam Kotal while in midfield, Jewel Raja replaced Stephen Pearson.

Unlike previous game, where Delhi bossed Chennaiyin, here it was a rather drab affair with mistakes flying in like fouling Hume in the very first minute, foul throw and few misplaced passes. In the 17^th minute, Kolkata finally took advantage of Delhi’s complacent when Doutie’s through ball found Hume in the middle. With just an onrushing Doblas to beat, Hume masterfully guided the ball to the far right corner as Kolkata took the lead.

Delhi continued to commit fouls as Kolkata piled on attacks after attack. One such through ball found Hume in space with just the Delhi custodian to beat but the former was flagged offside. Few minutes later postiga missed a chance trying an acrobatic shot from the edge of the box. Minute after half hour mark, In a smartly taken free kick, Postiga tried to hit past Doblas inside the box, but the ball just went narrowly wide.

Soon Atletico were made to do a forced substitution as an injured Doutie was replaced by Javi Lara.

In the 44^th minute, Malouda came up with a dangerous cross inside the box which was just missed by Badji’s diving header. But the referee booked the Senegalese striker for the second time as it seemed he deliberately tried to handled the ball while diving, reducing Delhi to ten men.

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Delhi went into the break trailing by a goal and a man down, Zambrotta decided to replace Niasse with David Addy, to steady Delhi’s regular bumbling mistakes.

Delhi continued committing silly fouls as Kolkata seemed comfortable in the game. But in the 60^th minute things seemed to change, Marcelinho on the run from left went tumbling down inside the box despite their being no contact but somehow referee believed it and instead of booking Marcelinho awarded a penalty to Delhi. Marcelinho was lucky to get away with nothing as he was already on one yellow.

Malouda made amends to his earlier penalty miss by scoring the second equaliser

Malouda stepped up take the spot kick but the Frenchman’s shot was guessed right by Debjit as he dived to his left to deny Malouda a goal, as Delhi a remained goal behind. But two minutes later Milan Singh, after receiving the ball from Kean Lewis on the right, took a screaming shot from around 25 yards as the ball went past the Kolkata defence beating a full stretched Debjit to bring back Delhi on level terms.

Soon Delhi began attacking more but in the 71^st minute, Kolkata managed to take the man advantage after Javi Lara, with plenty of space in between, tried a long range shot from around 30 yards that beat Doblas, as the visitors were back in to the lead.

But Delhi were back on level terms two minutes later, when Malouda inside the box with the ball smartly turned past Sereno and slid the ball in between Tiri’s leg before calmly smashing the ball past Debjit to make it his third goal in two games.

Few more half chances came for both the sides but none of those managed to materialize. In the second minute of injury time, from a corner, Atletico had a golden chance to take the lead once again as the ball fell to an unmarked Tiri at far post but the defender’s shot from close range was poor as the ball went over the bar.

The game ended with both sides taking a point each as Delhi increased the gap at the top to two points while Kolkata remained at fourth position with 13 points.

Delhi Dynamos FC 2 (Milan 63’, Malouda 74’) – 2 Atletico de Kolkata (Hume 17’, Lara 71’)