Bengaluru FC came from behind against Odisha FC with a 2-1 win in the Indian Super League on Monday night at the Athletic Stadium in Bambolim. The win keeps the Blues in the hunt for the semifinals while they need other results going their way to make it to the last four.
Nandhakumar Sekar broke the deadlock for the Kalinga Warriors in the opening exchanges of the game whereas Danish Farooq restored parity for Bengaluru FC followed by a penalty goal from Cleiton Silva to hand all three points.
Head coach Marco Pezzaiuoli was delighted with the character shown by his players despite not having everyone available for the match. The German shared how his entire roster is very talented and can slot into the starting eleven.
“All the players that we had in our lineup were first-choice. I believe in my players and they trained very well. Everybody who came inside were first-choice. As for why I did it, we played just three days ago and I wanted some fresh legs in the team. Udanta (Singh) was out against Hyderabad, Prince (Ibara) was out last game and today it was Sunil (Chhetri),” Pezzaiuoli stated at the post match press conference.
The German pointed out how he wanted to bring in fresh legs into the attack and therefore he is changing it up in every game to keep the energy going in the starting eleven. “We also had more strikers on the bench. Yaya (Banana) had his first game after a three-month break and I didn’t want any muscle injury because I usually protect players. So, when the game’s three days later, it’s enough to play 30 minutes and not risk injury. That’s why I made this decision,” Pezzaiuoli added.
Pezzaiuoli once again highlighted how it is important to win games at this stage of the league. They lost one against NorthEast United but Pezzaiuoli continued to motivate his players to win the other games to boost their chances of reaching the semifinals.
“We talked about this before — we have four games, we lost one and now we won one. It’s important. I told our players that it was important to look in the mirror and give it their best. So, when we won it was good because when you reflect and not win, you cannot be happy at the end of the season. We may or may not reach the top four, but when we look in the mirror we need to think that we gave our best this season. Maybe sometimes, we were unlucky, but we’ll see that after the season,” Pezzaiuoli revealed.
Bengaluru FC are in the fifth position in the ISL points table and they need a few results to go their way to get into the top four. Chances are slim but Pezzaiuoli’s men will be looking to give their all till their last match.
