Hyderabad FC opened their Indian Super League campaign with a 0-3 loss to Bengaluru FC on Thursday, but not before delivering a performance that belied the trials and tribulations the club has gone through in the off-season.
Three weeks ago, they barely had a squad of players for this season. They only really trained in earnest for the last two weeks, according to defender Parag Shrivas. And yet for 45 minutes, the 11 Indians in the Hyderabad starting XI went toe-to-toe with Bengaluru, and could have even gone into half-time with the lead instead of the 1-0 deficit they actually faced.
The cohesiveness of Hyderabad's passing, the clarity in their movement, and their work rate were all exceptional in the first half. That is quite the feat, considering the admission from head coach Thangboi Singto after the game that he hasn't had the time to do enough tactical preparation with his team. The focus of the last couple of weeks having been to get the players physically in shape to be competitive in the ISL.
"I think we know the challenges that we have in the pre-season before our first match. So I think in the first half, we did okay..." Singto said in the post-match press conference.
They did more than just okay, though. "Hum ne bhi khela, yaar, chances create kiya hum ne [we played too man, we created chances]," Parag told ESPN after the game.
Eventually, they didn't put any of the 10 shots they took - a bulk of them coming in the first half - on target. But that's the learning curve that these young players are on. They will be much better for the experience.
If Hyderabad had gone into half-time with the lead, no one would've begrudged them for it. They started poorly leaving Rahul Bheke unmarked off a corner, to allow the defender to give Bengaluru the lead.
But four minutes later, Devendra Murgaonkar missed a massive chance from point-blank range, with Gurpreet Singh Sandhu's goal at his mercy after an excellent cross from Parag. Alex Saji and Leander D'Cunha, too, had presentable opportunities from set-pieces, but put their headers wide. They forced the Bengaluru defenders to throw their bodies on the line to block shots as well, and at the end of the first half, the result of that was Bengaluru losing their discipline a bit, in frustration as they weren't allowed to play the kind of football they wanted to.
"If we could have taken the chances, it [the result] would have been different," Singto said.
Parag also said that Bengaluru's experience made a difference in the game, with their cooler heads in critical positions making better decisions than Hyderabad did. And, who more experienced in the ISL than Sunil Chhetri? It was the legendary forward's brace - that made him the ISL's all-time top scorer - that sealed the game for Bengaluru late in the second half.
That lack of experience also showed in the naive defending which led to all three Bengaluru goals. For the first, they left Bheke unmarked from a set-piece. For the second, D'Cunha mistimed a tackle on Roshan in the box to concede a penalty. Then they gave the ball away in their own final third in the build-up to Bengaluru's third goal.
Bengaluru had enough quality on the pitch to make Hyderabad pay for their mistakes. But those were mistakes that a young player would be given allowances for in a more experienced side. Right now, Hyderabad don't have that luxury, even as they continue to work on adding players - especially foreigners - to their squad.
Bengaluru's head coach Gerard Zaragoza said before the game that he expected Hyderabad to be a difficult opponent, who'd fight hard, just as they did in a 2-1 loss at the Kanteerava last season. He wasn't wrong.
"Hyderabad played a really good game. Under Thangboi Singto, these boys are doing a great job. A lot of teams are going to struggle against them," Zaragoza said.
For Singto now, it's back to the drawing board. He knows that his staff and him will have to continue to build this squad - both physically and tactically. But their start, especially the first half in their first game after a tumultuous few months, will give them the belief that this is a group of players capable of competing against the best in the ISL.