ISL final: Chhangte inspires Mumbai to 3-1 comeback win | Football News - Times of India

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Mumbai steal home team's thunder with great 2nd-half show

KOLKATA: The referee's final whistle was yet to be blown but

Lallianzuala Chhangte

briefly came over to the

Mumbai City FC

bench and kissed the crest of his jersey. A couple of his teammates came out of their seats to bow down to him in deference.

The packed stands of 62,000 had fallen silent by that time.

It was

Mohun Bagan

SG's heartbreak and Mumbai City FC's hurrah. It was Chhangte's night.

In a team game, Mumbai City's No. 7 painted the Salt Lake Stadium's canvass with one of the finest individual performances this season, guiding his team to a remarkable 3-1 win over Mohun Bagan to lift the ISL championship title and denying

Antonio Lopez Habas

's Shield winners an opportunity of doing a 'double' in the league.

Chhangte, who finished the league with 10 goals - the maximum among domestic players - didn't score this time. But such was his elegant menace that he almost single-handedly brought crowd favourites Mohun Bagan to their knees. His acceleration, vision and endless determination were too much for the home team. He simply eviscerated the opponents.

Mumbai City started with such intensity that Chhengte was denied by the woodwork twice in the first half. Yet, the fickle hand of football seemed to turn the script on its head in a stunning way when Jason Cummings put Mohun Bagan ahead in the 44th minute in what was the team's second shot on target at that time.

But

Petr Kratky

's Mumbai - having certainly learnt from their Shield-losing defeat here three weeks ago - continued to control the game with their passing and possession and always looked threatening on the break. The equalizer came in the 53rd minute through

Jorge Pereyra Diaz

.

Mumbai soon lost Pereyra Diaz and Alberto Noguera to injury. But their substitutes

Bipin Singh

and

Jakub Vojtus

rose to the occasion, scoring in the 81st and 95th minute, respectively, giving Mumbai the deserved victory.

While Mumbai players sang and danced with the cup, the result also put a question mark on Habas's strategy. They missed the usual creativity, and the likes of Manvir Singh, Liston Colaco and Dimitri Petratos were not given the license to set the tempo until the final 15 minutes when they decided to throw the kitchen sink in desperation.

Mumbai started on the front foot, flourishing in Petr Kratky's pass-and-move doctrine and leaving Mohun Bagan all over the place. The imperious

Chhangte

- the winger with exceptional work rate - was the heartbeat of their relentless pressure on the Bagan box.

Soon after Chhangte saw his lay-off across the goalline go begging, he came calling again, this time his looping shot hit the crosspiece.

The woodwork came to Bagan's rescue again when, receiving the ball from Vikram Pratap Singh, Chhangte took aim at the goal, the ball coming back into play after hitting the far post.

The storm was heavy but Bagan somehow managed to weather it for a while, and then added a twist to the tale out of nowhere.

Two minutes after Liston Colaco fired Bagan's first shot on target in the match, the Bagan winger initiated another move just on the cusp of halftime, with his usual brisk pace down the left flank. Petratos, receiving the ball from him, unleashed a ferocious strike from the edge of the box. Mumbai goalkeeper Phurba Lachenpa could only manage to block it but Cummings --just like the semifinal second-leg clash against Odisha FC here six days ago --reacted the quickest to slam home the rebound.

But Mumbai came back and stole the home team's thunder with a remarkable second-half performance.