Since the 2020-21 season is being played at a centralised venue, those numbers are not being counted in Cuadrat’s home/away record…
It was the last nail in the coffin for Carles Cuadrat when Bengaluru FC lost their last league match to Mumbai City FC 1-3. That was the first time the Blues lost three matches in a row since they made their debut in the Indian Super League (ISL) in 2017-18.
With statistics from Opta Jeev, Goal takes a look at the Spanish manager’s numbers during his time as head coach of Bengaluru FC.
After the departure of Albert Roca, Cuadrat took over the reins at the JSW-owned outfit during the 2018-19 season and led them to their maiden ISL title. Cuadrat extracted a win percentage of 48 per cent, while his predecessor had a win percentage of 66.6 per cent.
But it must be noted that Cuadrat managed for a longer period of time and there is the fact that Albert Roca’s Bengaluru side was a star-studded team with expensive players at their disposal.
| Managers | G | W | D | L | GF | GA | W% | P/G* |
| Carles Cuadrat | 50 | 24 | 13 | 13 | 70 | 52 | 48 | 1.7 |
| Albert Roca | 21 | 14 | 2 | 5 | 40 | 20 | 66.6 | 2.1 |
Bengaluru’s away form is something particularly came to hurt Cuadrat’s Bengaluru FC in the last two seasons.
During the 2018-19 and 2019-20 season, when teams got to play in their respective venues, Cuadrat enjoyed much success at home. With a 2-3 defeat against Mumbai City FC during the 2019-20 season, the 52-year-old lost only one match at the Kanteerava Stadium.
Away from home, however, things were not the same. Cuadrat had three more losses than wins as he faced nine defeats in 20 outings.
| 2018-19 & 2019-20 seasons under Cuadrat | |||||||
| Carles Cuadrat | G | W | D | L | GF | GA | W% |
| Home | 21 | 15 | 5 | 1 | 36 | 13 | 71.5 |
| Away | 20 | 6 | 5 | 9 | 22 | 27 | 30 |
Cuadrat can boast never to have lost a game against FC Goa, Pune City and Hyderabad. But the same could not be said in the case of Mumbai City and ATK Mohun Bagan, although he faced the latter just the once this season.
His favourite opponents were FC Goa and Odisha FC in terms of picking four wins each against both the teams. Only against Mumbai City and ATK Mohun Bagan has the Spaniard failed to register a win during his time in India.
| Cuadrat against teams | ||||
| Opponent | G | W | D | L |
| FC Goa | 6 | 4 | 2 | 0 |
| Odisha | 5 | 4 | 0 | 1 |
| ATK | 6 | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| Chennaiyin | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 |
| Kerala Blasters | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 |
| NorthEast United | 7 | 3 | 3 | 1 |
| Pune City | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| Hyderabad | 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 |
| Jamshedpur | 5 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| ATK Mohun Bagan | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Mumbai City | 5 | 0 | 1 | 4 |
During the 2019-20 season, Bengaluru had four wins from nine matches, just one better than where they are this season. Questions have been raised on Bengaluru’s defence this season as they have scored 12 and conceded the same number of goals. Last season, they had conceded only five times in nine matches and 13 in the entire term.
Offensively, Bengaluru was not able to find a prolific number nine to replace Miku who was allowed to leave after 20 goals and four assists in 32 appearances for the club. His replacements in Manuel Onwu (now at Odisha) and Deshorn Brown, this season’s signings in Kristian Opseth and Cleiton Silva have not been able to replicate the effectiveness of the Venezuelan in front of goal, leaving the burden of scoring goals on skipper Sunil Chhetri’s shoulders.
| Season | G | W | D | L | GF | GA |
| 2019-20 | 9 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 11 | 5 |
| 2020-21 | 9 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 12 | 12 |
One of the stark differences between this ISL season and the last one for Bengaluru is the number of clean sheets the team has kept from nine matches – six against two. There were no error leading to goals in the nine games during 2019-20 season, while the 2020-21 season has two. Also, Gurpreet Singh Sandhu’s save percentage was at 80% from nine games, this season it is at 63.6%.
The Blues have also continued relying on set-pieces, from 63.64% to 75% of goals scored so far this season from dead-ball situations. Whereas, under Cuadrat, Bengaluru has conceded 56% of goals from the hour mark including seven this season alone.
| Bengaluru FC | G | Clean sheets |
Tackle success % |
Shots on target faced |
Dribbled past |
Errors leading to goals |
Fouls conceded |
| 2019-20 | 21 | 6 | 67.7 | 25 | 48 | 0 | 102 |
| 2020-21 | 20 | 2 | 62.2 | 33 | 61 | 2 | 111 |
Bengaluru begin with their first test after the exit of Carles Cuadrat when they face East Bengal on Saturday.
