 Thank you for tuning in to another episode of 420gramsonnewsclick.in a day after the champion sides of the ISL and the Hero ID clashed in what is the most successful ever domestic club competition. The Hero Super Cup which has been in the news for all the right reasons. Agreed? You don't agree. But let me tell you our panel today, our panel consists of a Hero ISL supporter that is me, someone who's been supporting the Hero ISL iLeague and who got a trim, beard trim before coming on the show for this because here brother, the iLeague winner is Siddhan Dhani. What's the matter? And someone who loves sitting on the fence is Weber Raghu Nandan. Before we talk about that game, because the thing is that we take a very long discussion. So we're putting a timer of 15 minutes, which means I'm putting the timer on right now. As soon as the clock touches 15, irrespective of what you might be saying that you're the best person in the world or whatever, shows over. And so we begin. Who's starting? I think the winner needs to start. First bit. No, no. Slow clap. Why slow guys? And thank you. I'm happy to take all the credit for Janna's entire season. Thank you. I have to ask a question that when Sunil Chhetri missed the penalty, what was his reaction? The polar opposite of Sunil's reaction. Exuberant. Anti-national. He's the captain of our country. The most remarkable thing was that I don't think there's ever been a game where I've been so sort of... Being a partisan. Yeah. And like a game that Sunil is playing and wanting him to be on the losing side of things actively. Yeah. So it was a fun experience. Did it live up to your expectations? Because I'll be honest, man. I mean, I don't think it lived up to my expectations. I don't know what expectations you had. No, I was expecting something better. I thought there were many things wanting from both sides. Yes, you got three goals. But I still felt the midfield of both these sides was pretty much non-existent for large parts of the game. That means as soon as you won the ball in your half, you had empty space to reach the attacking third. I was doing in their goals at this court. Yeah. And Bengaluru were building a place slowly, but they were also not being tackled in the middle that much. Dimas Delgado had all the space on the planet to move the ball around and call the shots. We were at the Super Cup last year, same time. It's hard as hell. Like it's... The humidity levels are off the roof. So the intensity of the game automatically is... Like there's... I mean no one can play in those conditions. No one anywhere in the world. Did they play in the evening time? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It doesn't get... The humidity... I mean you can see it after ten minutes when they do close-ups of the players like their t-shirts are just drenched. You can just see that they're being waste away. I also thought the game was very different in the first half and in the second half in terms of how Chennai were approaching it particularly. After some time they decided to hold off. And the fact that this was in a way a different strategy from the way they've been playing all season long because of the opposition that they were playing against and the fact that I think they were pretty desperate to get a result and make a point in this game. Like what happens the rest of the... Like you said, the most important competition of the calendar year doesn't make a damn difference. I mean Hamjit Ge. But that's what... The reason I'm on the fence is simply because I don't know if this is the attitude that they went into. At the end of the day it is a quarter-final. So my big question first of all is also that such a good match, two champion sides in the quarter-final why did you play this game so quickly? You had a little bit of a challenge. The challenge was that we expect that they do some seeding process and they would put these guys on the opposite sides of the draw. Like you do in any other... You won your league in the ISL and I-League. Absolutely. You seeded 1-1 and you go on the opposite side of the draw and that's not how they do it. Evidently they put a lot of thought into making sure that I-League teams play ISL teams in the first round. They put a lot of thought into the qualifiers and after that they don't give a damn. That's all there is to it. No, but then when someone must have been making the draw they would have said, I want to win here, I want to win in Bengaluru. I want to win here, I want to win in Bengaluru. And both the champion sides came into the quarter-final. So also I can tell you directly what Kushaldas had said to me which was that this is like India playing... Kushaldas being the AIFF... Secretary. Saying that this is like India playing Pakistan in the quarter-finals of the World Cup. See, this is what happens when... No disrespect meant, but cricket people and football people should be separate. This is a bad theory, right? These are all the things that are happening outside of the field. But let's talk about the 90 minutes. Or as a friend of ours, Leslie Xavier said, 94 minutes of football... Because there is always four minutes of... There is four minutes of added time. The two goals that Chennai scored were all Bengaluru defensive errors, right? But having said that, they are Spanish boys going forward. I saw these Spanish boys playing and they are special now. Because this is the first time you saw an I-League team play this season. Second. See, I'm not lying. Whatever it is, it's true. If I'm given an option of choosing between two leagues, I'm choosing, I'm seeing this. What happened in that? Like you choose other leagues. Like you choose other leagues. But Bengaluru's defence was... Bengaluru's defence was all over the place. They were not... Yeah, of Chennai. All four Indian boys. Taking on the most potent attacking force in the history of... Miku was feeling a little tired. Miku was feeling a little tired last night. The weather is also like that. Yeah, and also it was the end of a long season. He seemed all right when he was jostling with the keeper at the end of the game. No, towards the end of the game when he was given that outside pass, Chennai City defenders stopping. That gives you an indication that the player is not switched on. In fact, even Chhetri did not have his best game yesterday. By no means. Chhetri, they troubled Chhetri that he himself was losing his mind. I think it was also clear in the way that he... Just in the post-match, you never see him react to any result. Victory or defeat, like the way he did. He was evidently really frustrated with himself. He just immediately walked off, went, took a breather on the icebox and then came back in. So you can see that he also, by his own standards, probably didn't live up to it. Sorry, yeah. One thing that I think which is sort of touched upon Chennai's defence was really good, these four boys. But also, they were also made to look good by the fact that we were discussing this also when we were watching the game, that Bangalore just refused to reset. They just kept going up, trying the same thing, winning the ball back. There was no desire to try something else, go back, spread it out, then bring it back into the centre. Yeah, I barely saw them breaking Chennai through the middle. They were always trying to spread out to Danta or Lishu Kumar. The same one that you mentioned where Chitri did the outstep over the top. Like those balls aren't going to come off on a regular basis through the game. On the night, Chennai City, the better team. Yeah. On the night. It's a game of 90 minutes. No, but the Spanish boys were really, really good. And even Edwin Vanspaal looked really good. Super, super. Ajit and the back. Ajit and Edwin, both of them. Would you agree that, I mean, going forward, there was so much space. There was some time that, you know, there was no space around. Even in fact, when the second Chennai goal was scored, the defenders kept backing off, kept backing off, kept backing off, kept backing off. I'm thinking, up pair, down, up tackle, up and again. And if you had analysed Chennai City's game, if you had just seen like five of their games from last season, which even I think you would have done if you were going to go and play them, right? Like you would have seen a little bit of Chennai City. You would have known that Pedro Vanzi is going to do this. He will cut in and he's going to take a shot. I think he scored at least three or four goals like this through the season. This is almost a pet detail. So then why are you allowing him? Why are you allowing them the space? Why are you allowing them to play these passes? The same thing each time. And I think Chennai had several of these chances. They wasted a lot of them. They wasted a lot of chances on the counter. It was actually good to see these boys from the south. Down south, you know, the lanky boys down south and... So much skill. And the confidence you're calling me anti-national. Imagine being that 20-year-old defender, right? Who has to face off with this... Legend. Yeah. Captain leader legend. Huge figure in terms of his aura and everything. And also the fact that he is such an intelligent player in terms of an attacking player to defend against. So, I mean, like, full marks, yeah. And the keeper, guys, who played half the season with Naroka. So I met him when we were in... In fall, in October. Nice, chilled out guy. Quiet, doesn't speak too much English, keeps to himself. But what a night he had. In fact, yeah, more than the Chaitri penalty, there was that cross that Udanta put in. And Chaitri hit it. What a save that was on the right. When he kept it down low. Remember, for a goalkeeper to make a save down below, it's tougher when it's... You know, when it's something in the air. Especially a tall guy like him. Six foot, six foot, seven. I mean, several moments like that. There were several moments where he came out, rushed in. He took a shot on his shin also. I don't quite remember who it was from. And very brave goalkeeper. And definitely man of the match. And I think Akbar Nawaz also admitted as much. Saying that he was the guy who really took them through. If I'm going to talk about Bengaluru, I'm going to say, look, Dimas Delgado was calling all the shots. He was given time also on the ball. So he was calling all the shots. But the guy who was with him, I've forgotten his name. Hernandez, the other foreigner with him. He just didn't look up to the mark. In the game. Yeah, and I guess that sort of tells you why we didn't see much of him in the ISL. Because the guy was not having any impact on the game. He was just getting the ball and spraying it right or spraying it left. I mean all his passes and whatever his contribution was. It wasn't having any impact in Bengaluru going forward. And it was this game was calling for someone to sit in the middle and just sit there. And stop those, not counters, but just stop those guys through the middle and give them that ample amount of space that both teams were getting in the middle there. Everyone was either rushing forward or everyone was either rushing back. There was no one to hold them back and play. Except for Dimas Delgado. Who I think saw the maximum amount of ball in the 90 minutes. So if you look at, I think the first half possession stats were 53-47. No, no, I'm just saying. So what I'm trying to make is maybe one of preparation. Maybe one of desire also. For Chennai City to win this game means far more than for Bangalore perhaps to have. Although they'll feel terrible about it because I know they approach every tournament that they enter as the favourites and wanting to win it. So of course they'll feel gutted by the loss. But maybe the desire that these boys had to prove a point that this is, especially given everything that's going on with the league structure and all of the future of the champions. I mean they've been in a way arm twisted into playing this tournament because there was a chance that their AFC berth would go for a toss otherwise. I think maybe otherwise they would have in solidarity with the other clubs also not participated. But they did and they've come with the mentality of winning it and this Akbar Naaz has in the first half he's made sure that at least they are not getting that much room to play. That his boys are keeping the ball as much as possible and showing that they are not just going to sit and wait. So I'm just going to put it out there for you. Favourites for the Super Cup now? After this result and just given the fact that they're draining like conditions and you've played a massive 90 minutes versus a Bengaluru so mentally also you're drained a little bit. What do you think? If they win the Super Cup then what? That's like a whole other 15 minutes. If they win the Super Cup then what? But how sir? Favourites? Favourites for you? The challenge will be Goa after the high of switching back on then. Coming back for another big one. Goa would be the obvious other container but I think they are conveniently on the other side of the draw. Okay I'll tell you what. So we have about one and a half minutes. I'm giving everyone 30-30 seconds to smile for the rest of the show. Sir I'm listening to you. 30 seconds to sum up this match. That feeling. No I'm still like I'm going to just give you a really balanced thing. Boss this was a very good game of football. I don't know what your expectations were. I had a great time watching it. It was after really long and I watched it. There was a great night of football. I mean in a season when there's so many meaningless matches and there's so much drab football this was one match which was loaded with meaning meaning that it had and meaning that it was just given also and then there was the expectation everything and so I genuinely enjoyed it. It was after really long that I saw such a great game of football in fact this was something that I had put out and I had told almost everyone who has asked me about the game that we were sitting and watching the game when we walked in the IPL was on the projector. Both screens. And at the end in the second half the guy came and he got when we shifted the football to the big screen IPL was on the small screen so win to I love football. I love football. Sir 30 and counting Akbar Nawaz for coach of the season? Yeah 100. I mean he's shown his tactical acumen and football says it for him. Backing the I-League Raghunandan backing the fence guys thank you so much for joining us on another episode of 420 Grams we promised you 15 seconds 15 minutes 15, 4, 3, 2, 1 we are not going have fun Thank you for watching. Goodbye