The ISL spotlight is back on Nicolas Anelka as the mercurial French striker scored his second consecutive match winner on Wednesday.
The former Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City striker scored in the 59th minute for Mumbai City FC as they defeated Delhi Dynamos FC 1-0 in front of a delirious home crowd at the DY Patil Stadium in Mumbai.
Peter Reid's team has moved up to third in the standings with nine points from six games. With Anelka in sublime scoring form, they will be hot in pursuit of the two tournament leaders, Atletico de Kolkata and Chennaiyin FC.
Atletico are leading the pack with 12 points from six matches. Chennaiyin are two points behind but with a game in hand.
Anelka's goal came off a superb counterattack initiated when Mumbai City's Czech midfielder Jan Stohanzl released Anelka's strike partner Subhash Singh down the right. Singh dinked the ball on to the onrushing Frenchman, who responded with a sublime left-footed finish.
This is Anelka's second consecutive match winner in the ISL, following his free kick on Sunday against Kerala Blasters FC. He has played in only the last three matches of his club's campaign after missing the first three matches with a suspension.
The first half was a midfield battle for supremacy with the visitors enjoying the lions' share of possession. Both teams, however, were not able to come up with meaningful scoring chances. Mumbai City custodian Subrata Paul was able to deal with a couple of half chances created by the visitors.
The closest either team came to scoring was when Anelka lobbed across the goal to an unmarked Singh, who fluffed the chance.
Mumbai came out firing on all cylinders in the second half. But when Delhi did finally venture forward, the home side responded with a superb counter attacking move in the 59th minute culminating in Anelka's goal.
Delhi responded by sending out their own global star, Italian World Cup winner Alessandro Del Piero. Mumbai, however, continued to attack and Anelka was at the centre of all their attacking moves. Singh wasted a good chance to double the lead from a one on one with Delhi Dynamos custodian Kristof Van Hout.
In the dying minutes, Del Piero wasted a golden opportunity to open his account in the ISL. His header off a cross from teammate Steven Dias was marginally wide.
Peter Reid could not help gushing about his star striker's finish. "It was an absolutely fantastic finish," Reid said in his post-match news conference. "People watching it on television will think that there is nothing special about the goal. But when you have such a tall goalkeeper bearing down on you, to finish it off that calmly requires a touch of class and Nicolas provided it."
Reid added that Anelka would give Elano a tough competition in terms of emerging the most outstanding player in the inaugural edition of the ISL.
"Elano has been outstanding. Nicolas has only played a couple of games and he will get better," said Reid. "You never know which way he is going to shoot when you are in goal and he has that fantastic quality of finding the back of the net.
"He could be playing in the Premier League now, so we are extremely lucky to have him. I am sure he will be up there in the honours list when the tournament draws to a close."
Mumbai travel to FC Goa on Nov. 9 while Delhi travel south to face Kerala Blasters FC on the same day.