An 18,336-strong crowd at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in New Delhi witnessed an action-packed Hero Indian Super League Season 2 match as Delhi Dynamos FC and Atlético de Kolkata played out a 1-1 draw on Saturday evening. Richard Gadze’s goal for the home team in the 61st minute cancelled out Iain Hume’s strike in the 27th minute.
The match began on a sombre note as both teams observed a moment of silence for the victims in the Paris and Beirut terror attacks. After the game began, the first real chance came Delhi’s way as they came close to scoring in the 8th minute when an Adinga cross, directed towards a charging Robin Singh, was put away by ATK keeper Amrinder Singh.
Kolkata came close in the 14th minute when Sameehg Doutie crossed to Valdo but Lions goalkeeper Toni Doblas’ stitch-in-time denied the Brazilian. The first goal of the game came 13 minutes later through Hume who scored his fourth goal of the season. A speeding Rino Anto crossed into the box from the right wing and Doblas’ interception fell to Hume who made no mistake driving it to the back of the net.
Delhi Dynamos improved their performance quite a few notches after conceding the goal and increased their runs into the ATK box. However, they failed to find that elusive equaliser and went into the break trailing 1-0.
In the first few minutes of the second half, Delhi looked a bit dull up front and that led to Roberto Carlos bringing on Gadze for Gustavo dos Santos and the move paid dividends immediately as the Ghanaian shot one right past Amrinder from the left side of the box to bring the home team back on level terms.
Gadze came close to scoring the second one for Delhi in the 77th minute when his shot from the box hit the far post. Robin, too, eagerly took a stab a few minutes later but the scoreline stood at 1-1.
Both teams’ positions in the table remained unchanged following the draw. Delhi, with 15 points from nine matches, continued trailing table-toppers FC Goa and FC Pune City, while ATK were one point behind the Lions at fourth.
