Goals from Rohit Kumar, Roy Krishna and Sivasakthi Narayanan gave the visitors all three points, but in the larger scheme of things, the win perhaps shouldn’t have even taken place.
The Men of Steel conceded a goal early, and while the defending left plenty to be desired, the immediate comeback suggests this team certainly lives up to its “steel” moniker very well.
The likes of Ritwik Das, Harry Sawyer and Daniel Chima Chukwu were all a threat going forward, and there was a clear plan in place from the get-go.
With the size and strength advantage that the home side possess, set pieces were always going to be a problem for the opposition, and that is exactly what the numbers later suggested.
Jamshedpur had 21 corners during the game, while Bengaluru could only manage 2 of them, but despite the dominance in this category, none of them actually resulted in a goal.
Head coach Aidy Boothroyd later lamented the lack of conversion of his team’s chances during the post-match press conference, but highlighted how he felt his team deserved to win the game over the course of the 90 minutes.
“We were the better team,” Boothroyd said.
“First half, crosses, shots, something like 22 shots in the game, but the one that counts is the team that can keep the clean sheets and unfortunately for all our great efforts, our final end product was missing. If you don’t convert your chances, you don’t win.”
The honesty from Boothroyd also had a sense of frustration behind it. Time and again, Jamshedpur have let goals in and had to chase the game, increasing the possibility of a defeat despite having chances.
An inherent lack of confidence from not winning enough games is also showing, but the team’s desire to win cannot be doubted. Young Indian players like Boris Singh, Ritwik Das, Ishan Pandita and others have all played a major role in trying to get the team back to where it belongs, but it just hasn’t clicked at the back.
An injury in the first half to key defender Laldinpuia Pachau only added to the woes at the back, since a new strategy had to be made to counter the BFC attack, and despite only one goal going in during the second half, there was a bit too much ground to make up.
One of the positives this season in a tough campaign has been the emergence of Vishal Yadav in the Jamshedpur goal. Vishal has come through the system via the Tata Football Academy.