Bhubaneswar: Twelve nights from its last victory, two-time ISL champions ATK extended its winning streak to another match, with a 4-1 win against Chennai City at the Kalinga Stadium on Friday.
It sailed them into the Super Cup finals which will hit running from March 31 and pit them against FC Goa, one among five other sides they have failed to beat this season.
In his successive match as player-cum-manager, Keane scored again and was joined by Hitesh Sharma (43rd minute), Zequinha (58th minute) and Ashutosh Mehta (76th) on the night. Frenchman Jean Micheal Joachim scored the lone goal for Chennai.
Sharma scored the first with a left-footed stunner after Zequinha’s corner had reboundedP off a head. It was the 19 year-old’s first goal and sort of sparked life into the game, for until then both teams had sleeeped-walked and it was only after one of the Stadium’s floodlights went dead that both teams woke up.
But then the usual suspects came up and as it has been all season, ATK conceded minutes after scoring their first. Jean Joachim Micheal met the end of a very inviting cross from Edwin Vanaspaul after bearing the offside real to level terms for the Southern club.
Keane’s words at the break though seems to have worked well for ATK, whose players looked ultra-confident as the second-half got running. “I spoke to the players and asked them to regroup. To be fair, later we controlled the game,” said Keane at the post-match conference.
Soon Zequinha got into the contest, scoring from close range after Mbatha found him from a through ball. The Portugese returning from a hamstring injury never really looked out of touch and was by far ATK’s best player in the field.
Mehta then scored from another tap-in, when Zequinha found Robin Singh with another delicate ball and the latter put it up for the defender.
Squeezed between those two goals was Singh’s one-to-one chance with only the goalkeeper Kabir to beat but he failed and so did Chennai who had a double opportunity to pull two goals back. But Joachim squandered both, failing to score from two free-kicks from outside the box.
Keane then settled the issue with a calm finish in the 84th minute after Zequinha had found him with another through ball behind the Chennai defence.