The Marina Machans raced to a two goal lead inside the opening 15 minutes courtesy of an own goal from Hira Mondal in the 2nd minute and a 14th minute strike from Ninthoi.
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Chennaiyin FC head coach Bozidar Bandovic was dejected with his side’s second-half performance in the 2-2 draw against SC East Bengal in the Indian super League (ISL) fixture at the Tilak Maidan Stadium on Wednesday. The Montenegrin coach felt that his side “need to bring confidence” from the first half half performance that saw them scoring two goals. The Marina Machans raced to a two goal lead inside the opening 15 minutes courtesy of an own goal from Hira Mondal in the 2nd minute and a 14th minute strike from Ninthoi.
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Dozens of chances and a whole package of entertainment tonight in the #HeroISL as both sides scored 2️⃣ goals a-piece to end the game in a draw ?
Watch the full highlights from #SCEBCFC ?https://t.co/HrCtGcg1ZH#LetsFootball | @sc_eastbengal @ChennaiyinFC pic.twitter.com/SGA9mAlUTX
— Indian Super League (@IndSuperLeague) February 2, 2022
But SC East Bengal denied Chennaiyin a chance to rise to third spot in the points table as they scored two goals in the second half through Darren Sidoel and Lalrinliana Hnamte and shared the spoils. Sidoel’s goal was a well taken free-kick just after the hour-mark while Hnamte leveled the score in stoppage time to break Chennaiyin FC’s hearts.
“I need to split my team into two halves. The first half was excellent. And the second half was not good because we didn’t do what we did in the first half. We didn’t keep the ball and of course, we made some changes, we had some problems. We cannot concede a goal like this,” said Bandovic in a post-match press conference, as per the ISL website.
The head coach further said that despite losing points from a winning position his side needs to bring confidence from their first half performance and keep their mentality positive to win the next game.
“We need to bring confidence to the team, we need to use this first half that we played very well with the two goals. But football is like this and we need to keep trying and keep our mentality positive and try to win the next game. Of course, it’s very painful when you lose a game like this and this shouldn’t have happened,” said the head coach.
The draw left Chennaiyin FC at the sixth spot with 19 points from 14 games, just one point outside the top-four, and their semi-final hopes are still alive, with six games left to play. Bandovic’s side will next face Mumbai City FC on Sunday.
