Mumbai: Haitian winger Sony Norde missed one of the easiest of chances that one could have ever dreamt about as defending champions Mohun Bagan were held to a goalless draw by a spirited Mumbai FC in their fifth round encounter of the I-League football tournament.
Bagan remain third in the league table with 11 points from five games behind Bengaluru FC and East Bengal, who are in the first and second position currently with 15 and 14 points respectively. Mumbai FC with nine points from six games are in fourth place.
It was in the 69th minute that Bikramjit Singh freed Bagan's Japanese mideo Katsumi Yusa as the Mumbai FC defence were left stranded trying to lay an off-side trap.
Katsumi entered through right and kept the perfect pull-back for a surging Norde, who sprinted down left only to find his powerful tap hitting the left vertical.
After a slow start, the game picked up pace but also degenerated into a brawl with seven players in all, from both sides, being booked by referee B Balasubramaniam.
Among those was Mumbai's Pratik Chowdhary for a rough tackle on Bagan s Cornel Glen in the first half and then intentionally hacked Bagan skipper and speedy winger Katsumi Yusa in the middle of the pitch early in the second, for which he deserved to be booked again and sent off. But the referee just cautioned him.
in another match, Runners-up Bengaluru FC notched up a crushing 4-1 win over DK Shivajians at Sree Kanteerava Stadium.
Skipper Sunil Chhetri's 15th minute goal off a free-kick opened the floodgates for Bengaluru with Kim Song Yong (33rd), Shankar (53rd) and Len Doungel (80th) sounding the board.
The Blues thus braced themselves to snatch the top position in the points-table from Kingfisher East Bengal, who are second with 14 points, a point below the hosts.
Only once did the Blues'defense breached in the entire match when Kuttymani Sapath scored one past a hapless Amrinder after he was at the end of the cross from Douhou just before the halftime whistle.
Playing with Chhetri and Kim up front, Bengaluru started on an attacking note while Shivajians appeared to be settling down with the feel of the playing conditions
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