Goals from Malemngamba Meetei and Jagaba Hamza put the home side in the driver’s seat before Odafa Okolie’s brace and goals each from Jewel Raja and Manish Maithani earned them three points.
HAL started with Vinod Kumar partnering Jagaba Hamza upfront while Bagan, bereft of Sunil Chhetri due to an injury, had Jose Barreto and Odafa Okolie as their front two.
The first real piece of action saw Hamza earning himself a booking after Kingshuk Debnath’s tackle saw the former allegedly dive to appeal for a penalty in the eighth minute.
Thereafter Mohun Bagan’s Snehashish Chakraborty kept finding open spaces from the left and his cross saw Barreto’s shot being cleared off the line by Liliyan Kenneth.
It was very much against the run of play that HAL took lead when R.C.Prakash foxed Dhanarajan to see his cross from the right being met by the diving header of Malemngamba Meetei. Defenders Anwar and Debnath were equally at fault as Dhanarajan for allowing Meetei a free header inside the box.
Subrata Bhattacharya responded by bringing in N.P.Pradeep for Dhanarajan; Syed Rahim Nabi slotted in as a left-back, Jewel Raja are the right winger and the former Mahindra United medio in the middle of the park.
Bagan could have equalized when Joseph Adeola’s clearance came off Odafa for Barreto and as the Brazilian lined-up for a shot, goalkeeper Pramod did well to thwart the danger.
The Green and Maroons defence crumbled once again when Hamza, with his second touch, scored from a long ball as none of the Bagan defenders managed to clear the danger nor did the onrushing Sangram Mukherjee.
After the break, HAL were forced to substitute Adeola after he was stretchered off at the end of the first half.
It was Bagan who started the brighter of the two sides though HAL had a decent chance when Prakash laid the ball for Meetei who couldn’t keep his shot down.
Odafa was almost through on ball when Pramod made a crucial intervention to deny the Bagan number nine.
The goal came in the 60th minute when Snehashish’s cross from the left saw an unmarked Odafa head home.
Snehashish had the chance to equalize but he fluffed his shot wide under pressure from Kenneth inside the box.
HAL should have had the match under their bag when Prakash and Meetei combined and the former’s cross only need a touch which the onrushing Vinod couldn’t provide.
The equaliser eventually came in the 70th minute when from a Snehashish flag-kick, Raja flicked on for Odafa to head in.
Thereafter once again HAL should have capitalised much better when a James Singh effort was punched away for a corner. From the ensuing flag-kick, Mukherjee came off his line to miss the flight of the ball and Hamza’s header came off the crossbar. The ball once again came at the feet of the striker but his feeble effort was cleared off the line by Debnath.
It was Snehashish who released Nabi and the latter pulled it back for Odafa whose first time left footed shot fell for Raja who scored from six yards out in the 88th minute.
Substitute Manish Maithani scored a gem of a goal as he controlled the ball, cut inside and placed the ball beyond the goalkeeper to make it 4-2.
The win takes Bagan to the second slot in the standings and just two points behind Dempo SC, who are in action in Kolkata against East Bengal on Thursday.
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