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Lallianzuala Chhangte netted a brace to help Mumbai City beat Chennaiyin FC 4-0 in the Kalinga Super Cup.
Kalinga Super Cup: Lallianzuala Chhangte helped Mumbai City beat Chennaiyin FC 4-0 (AIFF)
Lallianzuala Chhangte delivered a captain’s performance with a dazzling brace as Mumbai City breezed past Chennaiyin FC 4-0 in a dominant Round of 16 encounter of the 2025 Kalinga Super Cup at the Kalinga Stadium on Wednesday.
Nikolaos Karelis (43’) scored the first goal for Mumbai City FC at the stroke of half time before Lallianzuala Chhangte (64’, 86’) stole the show with his two goals. Substitute Bipin Singh (90’) capped off the win with a strike in the last minute.
Mumbai City FC, still smarting from a heavy 0-5 defeat against Bengaluru FC in the ISL knockout rounds, responded in emphatic fashion to book their place in the Kalinga Super Cup quarter-finals. Their opponents, Chennaiyin FC, had finished a disappointing 11th in the ISL, and their Super Cup journey came to an end after another underwhelming performance.
From the opening whistle, Mumbai City were on the front foot. The attacking trio of Chhangte, Karelis, and Jorge Ortiz looked sharp, with intricate passing and excellent movement that repeatedly exposed gaps in the Chennaiyin backline.
Chhangte nearly opened the scoring early on when he latched onto a defensive error, glided past his marker and unleashed a shot towards the far post only to see it come back off the woodwork.
Chennaiyin struggled to settle into the game and were denied what looked like a potential penalty after Daniel Chima Chukwu was brought down in the box by Vikram Pratap Singh, but the referee waved play on.
The breakthrough finally came in the 43rd minute. A half-cleared corner fell kindly to Hitesh Sharma, who lofted a teasing ball into the box. Chennaiyin goalkeeper Mohammad Nawaz was a tad late in coming out to affect a save and Nikolaos Karelis made no mistake, nodding home from close range to put the Islanders ahead at the break.
After the interval, Mumbai City resumed their control. Ortiz and Chhangte combined beautifully to carve open chances, and the latter came close again before Chennaiyin nearly found an equaliser. Lukas Brambilla danced past Mumbai City goalkeeper TP Rehenesh and seemed destined to score, but Mehtab Singh’s goal-line clearance denied Chennaiyin a lifeline.
That moment proved to be the turning point. In the 64th minute, Ortiz once again danced past his marker and slipped Karelis in behind. The Greek forward’s effort across goal wasn’t the cleanest, but Chhangte was there at the far post to tap it into an open net and double Mumbai City’s lead.
Chhangte struck again in the 86th minute with a touch of class. Ortiz played a sublime outside-of-the-boot flick to send him through. The winger cut inside on his favoured left foot and curled a low shot past the goalkeeper to make it 3-0.
In the last minute of the game, Chhangte turned provider. A delicate scooped pass found Bipin Singh in the box, who brushed aside pressure from Mandar Rao Desai and calmly slotted home to complete the rout.
- Location :
Bhubaneswar, India, India
