Bhubaneswar, April 8: Chennaiyin FC came back from a goal down to beat NorthEast United FC 2-1 in the Hero Super Cup 2019 quarterfinal and set up a semifinal clash with ATK at the Kalinga Stadium.
Rowllin Borges put NorthEast in front just nine minutes into the match. Mailson Alves levelled things up for Chennaiyin in the 33rd minute. Anirudh Thapa hit the all important winner with a solo effort seven minutes later.
The 21-year-old midfielder was the standout player and capped off his performance with a goal and an assist and was adjudged the Hero of the Match.
For his fantastic performance 🤩, the Hero of the Match in #CFCNEUFC is none other than @AnirudhThapa! 🙌🙌#IndianFootball #HeroSuperCup pic.twitter.com/tp0rl37uFO
— Indian Football Team (@IndianFootball) April 7, 2019
Chennaiyin FC coach John Gregory heaped praise on his young star and Hero of the Match, Thapa.
"He did okay. He assisted for the first goal and scored the second one. We've tried to look after him as best as we can. He's our player. I'm a little bit cautious. I want to look after him. He's played a lot of games. We're just trying to manage him in the right way which sometimes means not starting him, sometimes not putting him on the bench. To his credit, he's a better player now than a year ago."
His NorthEast's counterpart Eelco Schattorie said he was satisfied with the result considering the injury-crisis plaguing his team.
"We started the first half really well. We scored a good goal from a corner. But the biggest problem that I expected was that we didn't play for four weeks. All my training sessions were with 14-15 players. So, we lost some rhythm. My centre-back Mato Grgic had to come off in the first half. Second half we played really well. We had enough chances. We did well."
Semifinal line-up
Tuesday, April 9
Chennai City FC vs FC Goa
Wednesday, April 10
Chennaiyin FC vs ATK
(Both matches at Kalinga Stadium will kick off at 8.30 pm IST)