Bengaluru FC go down to second string Johor Darul Ta'zim away from home

A HAPLESS BENGALURU FC went down 3-0 against a second string Johor Darum Ta'zim side away from home in their last AFC Cup group stage match.

Going into this game having already ensured a place in the AFC Cup knockouts, the Blues were playing for pride; a good performance against the defending champions would give them a massive morale boost. Johor, meanwhile, decided to heavily rest their first team regulars. 

BFC started bright. Micahel Collins got some space and charged in but his low shot just about missed the target. A couple of corners too came the Indian champions' way, which meant the home side was mostly confined to crowding their own box trying to keep the Blues away.

But slowly they regained control. Captain Amri ran up and fed Safee who fired in the hole but Amrinder was right where he needed to be. Amri once again sent a ball, to Nazrin this time, but he was just off target.

Meanwhile Eugeneson Lyngdoh was still making a few runs. Bengaluru earned a couple of set pieces but couldn't make a dent. Kim Song-yong got booked, rather unnecessarily. Still, the half-time score was an encouraging 0-0.

Some concrete chances started coming Johor's way in the second half. Safee had space and the full face of the goal to shoot at but he found the crossbar. Amrinder made a couple of good saves. 

But around 69 minutes in the break-through came for the home team. Safiq Rahim, who was wearing the captain's armband tonight, made a run, took a shot, and unfortunately from Amrinder it took a deflection from John Johnson and went completely out of his reach. 1-0 to Johor.

Minutes later Safee finally got his goal. Safiq was the architect behind this one, with a peach of a through ball. The finisher from Safee was pin-point. 

It was pretty clear by this time that BFC had no chance to gain much from this game. A frustrated Eugeneson Lyngdoh had picked up a booking; Sunil Chhetri had been taken off after not being effective enough for the first hour. But just before the match got over, Rino Anto added to the Blues' misery by bringing down Chanturu inside the penalty box. Shakir Shaari took the penalty and scored. 

Johor won the match 3-0, maintaining a 100% win record in the AFC Cup group stage. Bengaluru FC suffered their third straight defeat in all competitions; a rarity for them. This game didn't alter their positions in the group but it sure rang out a lot of alarm bells for Ashley Westwood; his boys had failed to make a mark in the last competitive game before their season-ending AFC Cup pre-quarter final match against Kitchee FC away from home. But on the brighter side, they have two weeks to correct mistakes and prepare for that game.