ISL 5: Wasteful Mumbai, ATK play out goalless draw

Mumbai City and ATK played out a goalless draw in the ISL on Saturday at the Mumbai Football Arena. This result thus leaves both these sides on their respective places in the points table. While the two-time champions continue to remain in the sixth place, Mumbai clung to their place at the fourth position.

In only the second goalless draw in this season of the ISL, neither of the two teams looked good to take home all three points as there were some good individual performances.

The visitors had the first realistic chance at taking the lead when Everton Santos was able to cut through Mumbai’s defensive before passing the ball to young Komal Thatal. But the youngster couldn’t find success this time around, despite having only the goalkeeper Amrinder Singh to beat.

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Despite Mumbai having a superior ball possession to that of ATK, it couldn’t find an opportunity to break the deadlock. Santos, up against his former side looked dangerous when he had the ball at his feet but the Mumbai defence was up to it, preventing any damage whatsoever.

Meanwhile, Ricky Lallawmawma was successful in keeping Mumbai’s Arnold Issoko under check.

The hosts found a good chance to draw first blood when a shot by Rafael Bastos in the 49th minute successfully found Paulo Machado, whose effort was blocked at the ATK goal. The two had their chances in the next few minutes through counter-attacks but the first goal still eluded them.

ATK skipper Manuel Lanzarote almost found the net with a good free-kick in the 78th minute but Singh denied the goal. At the other end, it was Arindam Bhattacharya who stood tall, denying an effort from Subhashish Bose.

Lanzarote’s appeals for a penalty was left ignored soon after he was taken down inside the Mumbai box by Sehnaj Singh.