The race for the Hero Indian Super League (ISL) semi-final spots will take centre-stage when Bengaluru FC take on Hyderabad FC on Friday. But there will be another interesting sub-plot that will draw a lot of eyeballs. 

Sunil Chhetri vs Bartholomew Ogbeche.

The two joint-highest goalscorers in Hero ISL history will clash against each other as they battle to become the first player to reach the 50-goal milestone in the competition and thus become the outright top goalscorer in the competition's history.

Both Chhetri and Ogbeche have scored 49 goals in the competition. Chhetri has scored his 49 goals in 109 matches while Ogbeche has scored 49 goals in 71 matches. 

Ogbeche brace against the Highlanders took him to 49 goals and made him the highest goal scorer of all time of Hero ISL. The Nigerian striker is on a different level this season as he is taking Hyderabad FC to uncharted territories. The veteran is only one goal away from equaling his best goal record in a Hero ISL season that came in a Kerala Blasters FC shirt when he scored 15 goals in the 2019-20 season. At 37, he is still going strong and will look to add a few more goals to his tally before the end of this season.

On the other hand, the Indian captain equaled the Ogbeche 49 goals record against the Jamshedpur FC. The 37-years old striker has had a poor season by his standards and went without a goal for 11 matches. Though the Chhetri has competed in five editions of the Hero Hero ISL, it was the 2017-18 season that saw the best of him. He netted 14 goals and managed two assists in that season. In 2018, he won the Super Cup and won the 2018–19 Hero ISL with the Blues.

As the two prepare the clash, here's a look at the statistical comparison between the two players. 

Sunil Chhetri	Metrics	Bartholomew Ogbeche
109	Matches Played	71
49	Goals	49
12	Penalty Kick Goals	8
2	Hat-tricks scored	3
10	Assists	6
271	Shots	222
137	Shots on Target	88
50.55	Shot Accuracy	39.63
18.08	Goal Conversion%	21.62

Among both veterans, Chhetri has more goal contributions (59) than Ogbeche (55) in the Hero ISL. Only the Spanish forward Ferran Corominas Telechea, known as Coro, has been involved in more goals (64) than these two players. In terms of absolute numbers, Hyderabad FC striker leads the charts across various metrics it includes shots, shots on target, touches as he played more games in the tournament.

Sunil Chhetri	Metrics	Bartholomew Ogbeche
0.47	Goals per 90	0.88
0.1	Assists per 90	0.11
2.61	Shots per 90	3.98
1.32	Shots on target per 90	1.58
41.34	Touches per 90	37.15
5.33	Opposition box toouches per 90	6.22

This season, Ogbeche has been in sensational goalscoring form while the Blues striker has struggled to put the ball in the back of the net. In Sunil Chhetri's seven seasons in the Hero ISL, he has crossed the 10-goal mark only once. While Ogbeche has scored 10 or more goals in three of his four seasons in the competition.

While Chhetri can be excused for his slightly lower numbers in comparison to Ogbeche as he has played in different positions in attack while Ogbeche almost always had been the centre-forward. 

However, irrespective of who ends up with more goals come the end of the season, the two will always be remembered as one of the top goalscorers to ever play in the Hero ISL. 

While the competition between the two will take care of itself, as fans of football, there is are few joys bigger than witnessing the two in full flow and scoring goals for fun.