During the pre-match briefing, Bashundhara Kings coach Oscar Bruzon expressed his concerns about the refereeing, citing their previous experience with the competition, and his fears were realised when a 10-man Bashundhara Kings were defeated 1-0 by hosts Odisha FC in the Group D final match on Monday at Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar.
Despite coming so close to reaching the inter-zonal play-off semifinals, the Bangladesh Premier League winners were defeated once again.
Despite only needing a single point to win the group, Kings were unable to defeat debutant Odisha.
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Bruzon requests that the AFC probe the Kings-Odisha match.
Playing with one man down didn’t help Bruzon’s charges when Uzbek midfielder Asor Gafurov was handed a matching order by Vietnam’s referee Ngo Duy Lan for what seemed to be a yellow card in first-half stoppage time.
“I want to mention our past experience in this competition, not only at the club level, but at the national level, we have been having problems,” Oscar stated on Sunday. Everyone is aware that we had issues with referees in prior tournaments.
“We’ve been knocked out of the last two AFC Cups due to red cards.” The national team was eliminated from such an event [2021 SAFF Championship] due to a penalty. All of this is not an excuse for me. All of this is being done to protect the competition’s integrity.
In the 2021 edition of the tournament, Kings also faced ATK Mohun Bagan with one man short. Sushanta Tripura had received a red card on that occasion, as well as being sent off in first-half stoppage time. And Kings, who needed a win, lost their first-half advantage to settle for a 1-1 draw, therefore ending their chances of winning the group and progressing to the knockout stage.
Bruzon made two changes to the team that defeated Maziya S&RC, bringing in captain Robson Da Silva and midfielder Charles Didier, while Odisha FC made one, bringing in defender Serigne Fall, who scored the game-winning goal in the 66th minute with a powerful header from an Ahmed Jahouh corner.
Though Kings were cautious at first in the face of tremendous pressure from the home team, they eventually relaxed down.
Odisha’s two shots in the 10th and 17th minutes were effectively defended by goalkeeper Mehedi Hasan Sraban, but Rakib Hossain came within a whisker of breaking the deadlock in the 29th minute, but the winger drove straight at goalie Aminder Singh in a one-on-one situation.
Kings had been gradually displaying their character until Gafurov was sent off in first-half stoppage time for a foul on Ahmed Jahouh from behind in the centre circle.
Odisha applied tremendous pressure after the restart, and the game was almost entirely played inside the Kings’ half, with Diego Mauricio driving wide once and then striking straight to Srabon in the first five minutes of the second half.
Brazilian Dorielton Gomes missed a good chance to break the game in the 60th minute, driving miles off target inside the area.
Goalkeeper Srabon next denied Roy Krishna’s attempt for a corner, but the novice goalkeeper was unable to save Serigne Fall’s powerful header in the 66th minute, which stunned Kings.
Kings attempted to equalise, with Robson coming dangerously near in the 74th minute. However, the Brazilian forward stumbled inside the Odisha box, and a fine chance went begging.
The Kings captain had a great chance to tie the game in stoppage time, but Robson blasted the free kick over the cross-piece outside the area. Kings were eventually forced to accept another futile attempt in their fourth appearance in Asia’s second-tier club competition.