Bhubaneswar: Odisha FC head coach Sergio Lobera’s call for greater defensive discipline resulted in his team edging past NorthEast United FC 1-0 in the Indian Super League (ISL) tie at the Kalinga Stadium here on Friday night.
The Juggernauts rounded off only their second clean sheet of the season, which is uncharacteristic of Lobera’s teams who have conceded only 1.23 goals per game on an average in the 85 games that he has coached in the ISL.
Spearheaded by the centre-back duo of Narender Gahlot and Carlos Delgado, Odisha restricted NorthEast United into taking only three shots on target in the game.
Ahmed Jahouh and Lalthathanga Khawlhring guarded the backline to perfection, with the former controlling the tempo of the proceedings with his diligent defensive efforts and passing range moving forward.
As Odisha held their defence together, Brazilian striker Diego Maurcio kept pressing higher up on the field to build pressure on the Highlanders. Mirshad Michu denied Mauricio 26th minute, but the latter didn’t give up. He, in fact, compelled Michu into misplacing a pass that the forward conveniently collected and shot it past the goalkeeper to hand Odisha the lead in the 37th minute.
NorthEast United star Parthib Gogoi produced a remarkable effort that nearly drew scores level in the 57th minute. One of his shots was blocked inside the box, but he withdrew a little bit and shot strongly on target only to be warded off by a full stretched Amrinder Singh.
Amrinder thus inched closer to his counterpart Gurpreet Singh Sandhu, who has the most clean sheets for a goalkeeper in the ISL (40), just one more than the Odisha custodian (39).
