Bengaluru FC beat Chennaiyin FC by 3-0 in the Hero Indian Super League (Hero ISL) 2019-20’s first southern derby at the Sree Kanteerava stadium in Bengaluru on Sunday.

The defending champions have now registered their first win of the season, propelling them to fifth on the league table before heading into the international break. After the result, Hero of the Match, Erik Paartalu spoke in exclusive post-match interview with indiansuperleague.com. Here are the excerpts.

Hi Erik, you’re just back from injury and this is your first goal for Bengaluru this season. How do you feel?

It’s a great feeling. Obviously, I’ve been out for a couple of weeks and missed the start of the season. But I’m happy to come and do my bit for the team. It’s a good feeling to get all the three points. I think we were a bit unlucky in the first three matches. We had three point from three draws and now we’re just going to keep climbing the table now.

Talk us through the goals Bengaluru score today.

I think the goals came at the right times, particularly in the first half. If you score a goal early on it helps the team. We look to put pressure on the teams from minute one and it worked for us today.

From Chennaiyin’s end, striker Nerijus Valskis was on hand to express his opinions on the result. Here are the excerpts:

Tough game today. What would you say went wrong for you?

I need to say sorry to our fans. We played very bad today. They controlled the game for 10-15 minutes and we didn’t come back into the game. It was difficult after two goals to come back to the game.

Scoring goals is proving difficult. What is the missing element?

I think we gave them too many set pieces and corners. They were very strong, and this was a big problem today.

Do you think the break we help your team?

We wanted to win this game to get some confidence for the future but we must learn from this game and come back stronger  

Read the Match Report here.