It was always a difficult one to call.
FC Pune City without their head coach Antonio Habas by the touchline for the fourth, and mercifully final, game of the ISL season. A team that had failed to take advantage of beginning their campaign with two of their first three matches being played at home -- not just losing to Mumbai City and NorthEast United but also failing to beat them at the Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex in Balewadi for the first time in ISL history.
Kerala Blasters, a team that had played with passion and spirit but lacked the cutting edge, especially up front. If they had Iain Hume and a solid backline to thank for taking them all the way to the final in 2014, their 2015 campaign was a reversal of sorts with goals galore -- sadly, more of them conceded (27) than scored (22).
Pune were struck a blow before the match even began. Pitu -- or Josep Maria Comadevall Crous to give the full name of the midfielder who was once handed his Barcelona senior team debut by Frank Rijkaard -- hurt himself in the warm-ups and had to be replaced by defensive midfielder Bruno Arias.
This could have allowed Jonatan Lucca to play a more advanced role in the typical 4-2-3-1 that teams coached by Habas play, but the Spaniard could only watch from the stands on Monday as Pune fell behind to the earliest goal of the season because of poor defending.
All the central defenders chased the ball as it came down off a corner, and Azrack Mahamat's pass fell favourably for Cedric Hengbart, who collected his first ISL goal in his 28th appearance.
Hengbart is a steady if unspectacular exponent of the art of defending. Not a young man anymore at 36, most of his football career has been across less-heralded Ligue 1 teams in France before his first ISL with Kerala in 2014. He was one of the best passers in the league that season, registering a pass accuracy percentage of over 88. A year later, he returned for NorthEast United, and though the team failed to make the playoffs, he was one of the best players in terms of interceptions, his tally of 27 outdoing the likes of Lucio, Raphael Augusto, Leo Moura and Borja Fernandez when his side finished the league engagements.
Together with Aaron Hughes, Sandesh Jhingan and Josu, Hengbart has formed a steady defensive wall for Sandip Nandy to feed off in the Kerala goal. That they finally conceded a goal in their third match together was only because Pune never gave up despite falling behind.
That goal came off the shorts of Aaron Hughes, completely wrong-footing Nandy in the process. The shot was from a tireless Mohamed Sissoko, the former UEFA Cup winner with Valencia who also enjoyed a terrific initiation into Liverpool colours in 2005-06 under his Valencia coach Rafael Benitez.
French-born Sissoko is relatively younger at 31, but has been thrust into a massive responsibility by the sudden withdrawal of Eidur Gudjohnsen, whom he replaced as Pune's marquee. He is not a like-for-like replacement by any stretch of the imagination, since he was used more to boss the midfield at the Mestalla and at Anfield, and in later years in Turin, Paris and Florence. His only stint as an attacking player was in his first professional year at Auxerre, a club that Hengbart has 162 appearances for.
On a night when Pune and Kerala displayed a fair share of spunk but also a lack of composure in the opposition's defensive third, it was two unlikely titans who rose to salvage something for their respective teams by sheer strength of will. It was perhaps fitting that the only moment that could have tilted the match in Pune City's favour was when Hengbart appeared to clatter Sissoko inside his penalty box in the last minute of the first half, but the referee felt he had won the ball.
Pune City managed to avoid the dubious distinction of becoming the first team to start an ISL season with three home defeats on the trot. Kerala Blasters, who took until the middle of November to register their first points away from Kochi last year, could not secure a morale-boosting win but did come away with a valuable point anyway.
Would this be enough to spark these teams into life in a hugely competitive field?
Games come thick and fast in the Indian Super League, and form is a temporary thing. It is a difficult one to call.