Bengaluru, October 18: Bengaluru FC hoped to make a match out of it. Ninety minutes in football, after all, is plenty of time for come-backs, goals and much more. Or so they thought.

Just four minutes into their AFC Cup Inter-Zonal Final second leg against FC Istiklol at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium here on Wednesday (October 18), that hope died an instant death.

The Blues needed to overturn a one-goal deficit coming into the game and focused their energies on the attack from the word go, leaving them vulnerable at the back. Istiklol came after them in those 240 seconds. Actually, they needed much lesser time to wreak havoc. Qatari referee Khamis Al Marri contributed.

The visiting captain, Fathuloev Fathullo, was sent clear into the box in the second minute. Goalkeeper Gurpreet Singh Sandhu, who was optimistic about their fight-back on the eve of the game, charged after the ball. Midfielder Lenny Rodrigues stole the ball but Gurpreet was already on him.

Al Marri, however, saw it differently. He pointed to the spot assuming Gurpreet flung himself on Fathullo while Rodrigues was still down. The Blues claim to be a victim of a poor refereeing in the first leg after being denied a penalty in dying minutes. Here, they were duped of that chance to present a fight. Gurpreet could only get a glove to Davronov Nuriddin's powerful take from the spot and by the end of the fourth minute, FC Istiklol were almost into the final of the AFC Cup. Almost.

BFC were no pushovers though. They equalised twice in the game.

First, Rahul Bheke scored his maiden goal for the club and captain Sunil Chhetri then converted a penalty in the second half. It wasn't that Istiklol were unbeatable. Ghanian defender David Mawutor played a bad back pass, which fell into the feet of Daniel Lalhlimpuia in the 23rd minute.

The young forward surged towards the goal but had his grounded shot pushed out by goalkeeper Nikola Stosic. Off the resulting corner, Udanta received a short pass from Chhetri at the left and floated the ball right into the centre. Defender Rahul Bheke staved off his marker to head into the bottom right corner.

Bad luck continued to haunt the hosts.

They needed two more goals after that first equaliser and pushed forward for them. Three minutes before the break, BFC were reduced to 10 men after Harmanjot Khabra received a second yellow for a challenge on first leg goal-scorer Dmitri Barkov. He received his first booking a minute after BFC's goal for bringing down Fathullo on the left.

Eleven minutes after the change of sides, Manuchehr Dzhalilov, the top-scorer in the competition, appeared to have broken the off-side trap, and was sent through by an Istiklol player. BFC defenders subsequently lost their momentum looking for the off-side flag and Dzhalilov found space on the left side of the box.

Even as Juanan Gonzalez crumbled back to try and make amends, Dzhalilov squared it to Barkov, who completed a routine tap-in. That more or less killed the game for BFC.

Daniel Lalhlimpuia won them a penalty in the 64th minute after being nudged in the back by Oleksandr Stetsenko. Chhetri struck to the bottom-left to make it 2-2.

Yet, BFC were still short of two goals in their quest of setting up a final with Air Force Club of Iraq. Like coach Albert Roca claimed before the game, reaching two AFC Cup Semi-Finals in a row is also an achievement for a club that is only four years old.

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RESULT
Bengaluru FC 2 (Rahul Bheke 24, Sunil Chhetri 65 pen) FC Istiklol 2 (Davronov Nuriddin 4 pen, Dmitri Barkov 56) (2-3 aggregate).