Bengaluru FC registered their first away victory in Hero Indian Super League (ISL) 2017-18 against NorthEast United FC with a 1-0 win at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Guwahati on Friday. Playing in front of away fans did not deter the Blues after Miku’s solitary goal was enough to win them three points and regain top spot in the table.

It was an evenly-contested match that ended in heartbreak for the hosts as they failed to finish, even after initiating a total of 17 shots. In the post-match press conference, Bengaluru’s head coach Albert Roca was asked if, despite the win, NorthEast seemed to be the better side, to which he replied, “No, I don’t think so. I think you should see the first half, the first 30 minutes. We were clearly superior. We managed the situation like we wanted. They are a physical team with some quality. Things completely turned around in the last 10 minutes of the first half. In the second half, they made a mistake and we tried to punish as the game became more and more open. They put in a lot of strikers, a lot of crosses to put pressure on us and they did that very well. But I don’t think they were superior, we deserve the result. It was a really tough game and they’re a very good team.”

Friday was also the night, Lalthuammawia Ralte debuted in Hero ISL for Bengaluru FC in the absence of Gurpreet Singh Sandhu. He ended the night with a well-earned clean sheet, earning praise from the Spaniard who considered him to be “at the same level as the rest of the team.”

On the other hand, NorthEast United FC’s head coach Joao de Deus looked visibly disappointed at the several chances his team missed but applauded them for putting up a resolute fight. On being asked what led to the loss, he replied, “Everybody saw what went wrong. Two things did not go well. The first one was the mistake and that had put us in a losing position. The second one, we missed chances that were impossible to miss. We did not lose because the opponent was better than us. That is the key point of this game. You can analyse the game, and you can agree with me or not.”