The Kolkata outfit secured all three points courtesy of a Liston Colaco Hat-trick and substitute David Williams' late strike.
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ATK Mohun Bagan thrashed Bashundhara kings 4-0 in the AFC Cup Group D match at Salt Lake stadium on Saturday. Liston Colaco was the star performer of the day as the Indian international netted a hat-trick to secure all three points for his side and keep their hopes of making it to the next round of Asia’s second tier club competition alive. David Williams, who came in as a second half substitute, completed the drubbing with a late strike. The Kolkata outfit, who had lost their opening match 4-2 against I-League champions Gokulam Kerala FC, responded in the perfect manner to put up a solid performance against the BPL champions.
Brilliant show from the boys!!!?
We march on… ?❤️#ATKMohunBagan #JoyMohunBagan #AmraSobujMaroon #AFCCup2022 #MarinersInAsia pic.twitter.com/IMTC0rrQtG— ATK Mohun Bagan FC (@atkmohunbaganfc) May 21, 2022
The 23-year-old winger, who had scored a sublime free-kick goal against GKFC in the previous match, opened the scoring against the Kings courtesy of some poor defending. Centre-back Bishwanath Ghosh failed to make a simple clearance after a defensive mix-up inside the box and the ball fell nicely for Liston to slot home from 12 yards, in the 24th minute. Nine minutes later, Liston got on the end of a brilliant through ball by Joni Kauko, rounded the goalkeeper and put the ball inside the net. And then, in the 53rd minute, the Indian international finished off a cut back from Manvir Singh to make the score 3-0.
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It was Liston’s fourth goal of the AFC cup campaign. The Goan footballer is in stunning form, having finished the 2021-22 ISL season as the top Indian goal-scorer with eight scalps and three assists to his name. The 23-year-old is quick, skillful and has a bullet right-foot, which is a deadly combination for a striker.
Midfielder Joni Kauko played as an attacking midfielder, behind striker Roy Krishna. The Finnish footballer delivered an inch-perfect through ball for Liston to score his second goal of the night. He was pivotal to ATKMB’s transition from defence to attack. Krishna would often drop deep, drawing defenders towards him, creating space for the likes of Liston and Manvir Singh, and Kauko did a fine job of delivering quality attacking passes to pick their runs. ATKMB boss Juan Ferrando deployed a 4-3-3 formation with Carl McHugh and Deepak Tangri sitting in front of the back four and allowing Kauko to push forward.
ATKMB suffered a huge blow in the loss to GKFC when central defender Tiri was stretchered out with an ACL injury and then the back line stumbled and went on to concede four goals. However, Sandesh Jhingan, who came in to replace Tiri at the heart of the defence, did a fine job alongside Pritam Kotal, Prabir Das and Subhashish Bose. The 28-year-old was returning from an injury lay off and almost let in a goal in the 83rd minute but the Bashundhara Kings failed to capitalise on the mistake. Apart from the lone error, the defence did a decent job to keep a clean sheet.
