AFC Champions League: Blues fail to make it through the qualifiers

by Chittu Shetty February 1, 2017

I League Champions spirited effort went in vain as Jordan’s Al Wehdat downed the blues 2-1 to go through to the 3rd stage of AFC champions league qualifiers.

Facing an hostile away support & unfavorable cold conditions, the Indian side failed to get past Al-Wehdat of Jordan as two goals early in the second half turned the match in hosts favor despite Chhetri pulling one back to make things little interesting in the end.

The blues started in a 5-2-3 formation with the Juanan, Johnson and Ralte starting at the core of defence while Khabra and Udanta manned the flanks, Lenny and Watson took the midfield while Chhetri, Lyngdoh and Vineeth lead the attack. Blues looked to have come out with a fresh vigour after a recent poor I-league campaign, as they competed for the ball equally in the early exchange of the game.

The first shot on goal of the game came from Chhetri whose header was easily saved by the rival keeper. Soon the home side came to its fore and began attacking more playing some quick crisp passes to unsettle the blues defence. Sena Ralte and Johnson seemed lost against the pace of Amara conceding a little foul to many.

The first half ended at a goalless score-line as Blues defence held on to the flurry of Al Wehdat attacks.

But the second half started in an unexpected manner as the blues went down a goal, three minutes into the start. Amara’s shot from far post was deflected of the blues defence but fell to Ahmad who took a quick swipe at goal to the top left corner with Amrinder’s dive too late to stop it.

Also Read: Bengaluru FC gets ready for Asian Champions League qualifiers

Soon, the hosts began piling up pressure on the Blues defence with few more attacks, Johnson, who was not 100% fit, was quickly replaced by Keagan Pereira as Roca did not wanted his best defender to go down injured. Five minutes after the hours mark, Blues defensive blunder once again came out for the third game running as Sena Ralte conceded an unnecessary foul inside the box with the ball nowhere near them. Faisal made no mistake in the spot kick to slot the ball home and make it 2-0.

Going two goals down spurred the blues as Watson and Udanta began venturing in to attacks more often. Three minutes after conceding the second goal Chhetri pulled one back through a headed goal off a Watson corner, a goal which seemed reminiscent of the goal scored in AFC semi finals against JDT off Lyngdoh’s corner.

Although Bengaluru attacked more in the latter stages of game in search of that equaliser, they failed to break the hosts defence. However, in the 83^rd minute Vineeth had a golden chance after Udanta picked up a Chhetri through ball and sent it into an onrushing Vineeth who skied his effort over the bar.

Al Wehdat had a clear chance to put matters into bed in the final minutes of the game as Ahmad Elias effort was smartly saved by the Indian Custodian at the post. Later in the dying moments of the game, in an effort to find the equaliser, the Blues skipper tried his luck twice within thirty seconds from a long range, while one was curler from the far post that had a little too much power in it another was a long range strike from 35 yards that skimmed over the post.

The game ended with Al Wehdat getting into the next stage as the blues for the third consecutive time lost against the same score line of 2-1. The Bengaluru boys will now compete in the AFC cup along with Maziya (Maldives), Abahani Limited (Bangladesh) and one of the following teams– Timpu (Bhutan), Valencia (Maldives), Mohun Bagan (India) and Colombo (Sri Lanka).

Final Score: Al Wehdat 2 (Ahmad Mahar 48, Faisal 65’) -1 Bengaluru FC (Chhetri 68’)