You know what, Hyderabad really shouldn’t have had a chance.
Five minutes into their game vs league leaders ATK Mohun Bagan, David Williams raced onto an expert Roy Krishna flick-on, and Chinglensana Singh, last man back, had a decision to make. For once this season, he made the wrong one — bringing Williams down by the arm just as he was about to enter the box. Red card. No arguments.
Now, it’s hard enough taking on Antonio Habas’ Bagan with eleven men, but imagine having to play them for 85 minutes (plus) with just ten. With the kind of form Bagan were in (five wins in the last five, five clear at the top, Roy Krishna scoring when he wants), you just knew what was going to happen – the Habas machine turns it up a notch and makes their opponents question their will to play. Them’s the rules, no use arguing.
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Here, let’s step back for a moment, and take a look at the larger picture. This match shouldn’t have meant so much to Hyderabad. They really shouldn’t even have been in this position at this stage of the season — a couple of wins away from a maiden playoff appearance. They had ended last season at rock-bottom, a pale imitation of a football team. They had lost their big-name coach before the season even started when Barcelona, THE Barcelona, had come calling. In the first couple of weeks, they could barely field a fully fit XI, playing vast swathes of the opening stages with just a couple of foreigners and a whole lot of untested Indian kids.
So when they went down to 10-men against the league leaders, they decided to do what they have been doing for the past four months — look the accepted rules of life in the eye and laugh heartily at them. It’s what Manolo Marquez has taught them to do.
Three minutes after the red card, Aridane Santana pounced on a terribly underhit backpass from Pritam Kotal and scraped the ball past a flailing Arindam Bhattacharya. 1-0 to the team that should never have had a chance in hell.
Then, to a man, they dug themselves in.
Nikhil Poojary, a winger all his life, was at right back stepping in for the injured Ashish Rai. Victor Joao dropped in from his deep-lying midfield position to partner Odei Onaindia in the heart of the defence. Akash Mishra was superb, as ever, on the left flank. Ahead of them, the midfield and attack ran and ran and ran. Liston Colaco twisted blood, Hallicharan Narzary stretched the game, Santana dominated it.
It was working to a T, till fifty seven minutes into the game, fifty-two minutes of ten v eleven, Manvir Singh equalised. Laxmikant Kattimani, so good for so much of the game, and indeed the season, picked the worst possible time for a brain fade, sitting down when there was no need to and beseeching Manvir to clip it into the roof of the net from a tight angle. Which he did.
That should have been that. It should have broken Hyderabad’s resistance. But remember that tetchy relationship between the phrase ‘should not have’ and this team? Cue that laughter soundtrack again.
Roland Alberg came on for Colaco in the 73rd minute. In the 74th, with his first touch of the game, he slammed a volley into the bottom corner of the Bagan net. His first goal of the season. 2-1 to the team that should never have stood a chance.
They continued to hold Bagan at bay, restricting them to potshots from distance and in turn testing their opponent’s defence at every chance. They were so good that over the ninety, 11-men Bagan had one less shot on target than 10-man Hyderabad. Entering injury time of the second half, the story arc was set up perfectly. David taking down Goliath, history and numerical advantage and on-paper quality disparities be damned.
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Which is when Pritam Kotal stepped up and said, ‘nah, not today’.
That’s the thing about life, and Habas. They are relentless. They don’t much care for narratives. They care even less about perfect endings.
In the 93rd minute, Jayesh Rane swung in a hopeful ball, Kattimani couldn’t hold onto it and Kotal pounced on the rebound to bundle it home. 2-2, and that’s how it would end, Fran Sandanza missing a glorious chance to pinch it at the end.
It doesn’t matter, though. It shouldn’t. The mere fact that Hyderabad FC had played ninety minutes of football (stoppage times included) a man down against the most dominant side in the land and had almost pulled off the impossible should stand alone as one of this season’s great stories.
In the post-match interactions, Marquez was informed that the broadcast analysts felt the Kotal goal had been offside, to which he responded, “I don’t want to complain. It’s very easy to cry when the decision goes against your side. I just want to congratulate my players. I’m so proud of them.” And so he ought to be.
Their disdain for convention denied ATK Mohun Bagan their confirmed top spot, for now, but the result means Hyderabad now have to go beat Goa on the penultimate day, by a two-goal margin, and without Santana and Sana Singh (both suspended, both key cogs – the former their best attacker, the latter their best defender). Yet again, the odds are stacked against them. They really shouldn’t stand a chance…
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