Chennaiyin FC beat Bengaluru FC 2-0 at the Jawaharlal Nehru Indoor Stadium on Wednesday to record a much-needed victory after a streak of three draws in the Indian Super League.
Brazilian playmaker Rafael Crivellaro is the architect of everything that the Marina Machans do in attack, from establishing offensive moves to chipping in with timely strikes.
It was all Crivellaro on Wednesday as Chennaiyin FC completed a convincing victory against Bengaluru FC, who had parted ways with head coach Simon Grayson after their 4-0 loss at home last Friday.
Former India international Renedy Singh was on the touchline as the interim at helm for the 2018-19 ISL champions, but a change at the top didn’t result in a change in the results, as the club would have hoped for after Grayson’s departure.
It started with Namgyal Bhutia handling the ball inside the 18-yard box in the sixth minute, and up stepped Crivellaro to take the spot-kick. The attacking midfielder hammered the ball to the top left corner, leaving Gurpreet Singh Sandhu little chance to keep the scores level.
However, Sandhu put up a show thereafter, making a host of saves including three important ones to deny the trio of Crivellaro, Jordan Murray and Vincy Barretto in the first half. In the 11th minute, the goalkeeper dived to thwart Crivellaro’s attempt, and he repeated those heroics in the 30th and 37th minutes respectively to take care of the shots taken by Murray and Barretto respectively.
Chennaiyin got their second goal in the second half when Crivellaro eased his way through the centre of the Bengaluru penalty box, and displayed some crafty trickery with his feet to draw a foul. This time, he let Murray do the honours, who didn’t miss the opportunity and sealed the game and secured those crucial three points for Coyle’s side.