His side might have made headlines for the wrong reasons in Goa, but Atletico de Kolkata co-owner Sourav Ganguly said the win was more important.
Asked to comment on Robert Pires’ shocking claim that ATK coach Antonio Habas punched him on the face, Ganguly said: “Scoresheet reads 2-1 that is important.”
Atletico rode on Cavin lobo’s second-half brace to rally past FC Goa and maintained their unbeaten run, thus consolidating their lead with 10 points from four games.
The incident allegedly happened during half time in the tunnel at the Nehru Stadium in Fatorda.
There were seven yellow cards, a sending off of the goalkeeping coach Deshi Bhaktawer, and a cut on Gregory Arnolin’s left eye in an eventful evening in Goa, something FC Goa coach Zico termed as ‘American Football’.
“FC Goa came to play football. In the last three games, no players got expelled. We had got only two yellow cards. So my team goes to play football on the field. May be the other teams come on the field to play American football. But what happened today was very regretful,” the Brazilian has said.
northeast united
stun mumbai city fc 2-0
NorthEast United struck twice in the second half in a remarkable turnaround to stun Mumbai City FC 2-0 which saw the home side reduced to nine men in the end on Friday.
The home side, who had thrashed Pune City FC 5-0 in their previous match, failed to score a goal despite dominating the proceedings early in the match in front of their home crowd at the D Y Patil Stadium.
The first half belonged to Mumbai City FC but the visitors came back in the second half with a superior performance as they scored two goals to run away winners in their first away match of the tournament.
Zambia’s Kondwani Mtonga grabbed the opener in the 57th minute when he collected Koke’s pass to work past the lone defender Tiago Ribeiro and custodian Subrata Paul.
NorthEast United FC doubled the lead in the injury time when James Keene fed the ball to Guilherme Felipe who just had to beat the goalkeeper, to seal the issue for the visiting side.
With Mumbai’s Frederik ljungberg pulling his hamstring in the 72nd minute and the home team having used their substitutions, they played with ten men on the pitch.
Making matters worse, Mumbai were reduced to nine men when Czech defender Pavel Cmovs had to leave the field in the 75th minute after getting his second yellow card of the match.
Mumbai now have just three points from two matches while NorthEast have added three points to their kitty, taking their tally to seven points from four games.