League champs stand tall after scoring from corners, freekicks

BANGALORE: With two goals Mailson Alves headed the ISL trophy towards Chennai. Time will tell whether the Brazilian central defender also changed from being a journeyman to hero for a city where football is beginning to matter. Again.

The ability to rise tallest and win headers is part of a central defender’s job. And yet Alves’s goals felt like sucker-punches for Bengaluru FC (BFC) because he hadn’t done it at all in 2015 and only twice this season.

“To concede two similar goals from corner-kicks is the first time it happened in the last 25 games maybe. You get punished for that,” said BFC coach Albert Roca still looking like he was having trouble digesting them.

That the second goal came on the back of Dimas Delgado being injured and at the stroke of halftime felt like a double whammy. “We were playing a good game till then and nobody was expecting a second. Dimas being injured at the same time made it a difficult half-time where I was trying to get my players to rise again. Those two goals were a disaster. Let’s just say it was not our day,” said Roca.

Alves’s second goal had the opposite effect on Chennaiyin FC. “The big man has had lots of opportunities but today he couldn’t have put them better. Going into half-time 2-1 up was a huge advantage. I have been on the other side and know how deflating it can be,” said Chennaiyin FC coach John Gregory.

What makes defending setpieces against CFC difficult is that four big units --- Alves, skipper Henrique Sereno, rightback Inigo Calderon and central midfielder Dhanpal Ganesh --need to be marked. That is why 12 of CFC’s 31 goals this term have come from corner-kicks or free-kicks. Playing catch-up had Roca making a double substitution in the 60th minute.