ISL: Bengaluru FC beat North East United courtesy Costa strike

Matthew Derbyshire of NorthEast United FC and Aleksandar Jovanovic (in blue) of Bengaluru FC vie for the ball during the Indian Super League (ISL) 2022-23 football match between Bengaluru FC and NorthEast United FC, at Sree Kanteerava Stadium in Bengaluru. Pic/PTI

Bengaluru FC rode on Alan Costa's 87th minute strike to beat North East United 1-0 in their Indian Super League (ISL) opener on Saturday. The Brazilian defender nodded home a Javier Hernandez corner at the far post to log home full points for Sunil Chhetri-led side. Incidentally Hernandez had come in as a substitute for Fijian striker Roy Krishna. Bengaluru could have gone ahead in the 78th minute when Indian international Udanta Singh had received a ball at the edge of the North East penalty box.

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However his shot sailed over the cross-bar. Bengaluru got a number of chances in the second half and one such went abegging in the 64th minute simply because Sivashakthi, who could have driven home from close range after poor defending from North East backline, decided to set up his skipper Chhetri, who fluffed his lines. In the first half, Bengaluru enjoyed the majority of ball possession and Chhetri's 23rd minute header off a Bruno Silva centre was off target.

The easiest chance of the match was however spurned by young Sivashakthi, who had the sight of an open net with only goalkeeper to beat after Roshan Naorem's cut-back had him in perfect position. But in his bid to get done with the things in a jiffy, Sivashakthi missed the target.

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