Bagan looses yet another final to Churchill Brothers. Mohun Bagan looses the 2nd Final of the year, the 114th Durand Cup also goes to Goa. The Mariners drew first blood in the 95th minute. A swerving freekick by Subhojit was headed home by Eddeh Chiddi.







From the beginning Churchill was dominating, whereas Bagan midfield failed to make any impact on the game. Their supply to the forward line was erratic and infrequent. This resulted in immense, pressure on Bagan defence, but they held out and Dipak led from the back and it must also be mentioned here that the Captain Sangram also led by example as he kept all Churchill attack out. Between that there were some counter attacks of Bagan but all were fruitless.

In the 11th minute of the match Odafa created a panic in Mariners defense while Masih cleared the ball. Snehasis saved a sure goal from goal line which was headed in by Kalu from 2nd corner in 38th minute.  Dipak in Mohun Bagan defense has shown some kind of solidarity, while Barreto in forward line was totally off-colour, it was evident that Barreto is not yet fully fit. In the 2nd half both teams got some chances to score but none got success.

 After end of regulation 90 minutes in Extra time Chiddi opened the account for Bagan at 95th minute of the match. The inswinging floater taken by Subhojit Majumder from direct free kick found Chiddi’s head and Chiddi made no mistake at all.

 The next 10 minutes saw a flurry of activity from Churchill, resulting in a brace from Odafa. That itself put the Mariners in a big enough hole. The situation was further aggravated by the fact that the central midfield position was not well controlled by them. Mickey was looking like a boy in the woods in his role of an attacking midfielder, while Kuluthungan was an abject failure in the role of a holding medio, he was out dribbled, out run and out smarted everytime.

 However, Karim saw it fit to persist with him, and instead took off Mohanraj to insert Branco. This given the fact that we were playing against the most lethal striker playing in India, the inevitable happened a few minutes later and the match was sealed by Odafa in the 109th minute with his hattrick. It is difficult to figure out the reason of persisting with Kulu especially when he wasn’t able to achieve much.

 It may also be said here that this midfield cannot hold out much hope for us in the oncoming I-League. This is the umpteenth time this year when we had taken the lead only to concede the match, a perfect example of flattering to deceive. Are we bringing the I-League home?

Teams:

Churchill Brothers SC
29-Arindam Bhattacharya, 8-Thokchom Naoba Singh (84′ 6-Sudhakaran Naveen Kumar), 4-Rowilson Rodrigues, 19-Gouramangi Moirangthem Singh, 17-Robert Lalthalma, 27-Charan Rai, 15-Nacimento Silveira (90′ 24-Lenny Rodrigues), 9-Ogba Kalu Nnanna, 11-Khanthang Paite (82′ 22-Jaison Vales), 10-Odafe Onyeka Okolie [C], 12-Reisangmei Vashum

Unused Substitutes:
31-Lalit Thapa, 5-L. Dhanachandra Singh, 30-Yumnam Jugeshor Singh, 37-Ashley Fernandes

Mohun Bagan AC
1-Sangram Mukherjee [C], 13-Irungbam Surkumar Singh, 4-Deepak Kumar Mondal, 20-Rakesh Masih, 27-Nallappan Mohanraj (106′ 12-Branco Vincent Cardozo), 16-James Lukram Singh (85′ 32-Subhodeep Majumdar), 26-Micky Fernandes, 17-Kalia Perumal Kulothungan, 25-Snehashis Chakraborty (67′ 7-Santha Kumar), 10-Jose Marcio Ramirez Barreto, 9-Chidi Edeh

Unused Substitutes:
31-Shilton Pal, 8-Subho Kumar, 19-Mashangva Genius Zenith, 28-Manish Mathani, 34-Sangram Mandi

Yellow Cards: Nacimento Silveira (42′, Churchill Brothers SC); Micky Fernandes (2′, Mohun Bagan AC)

Referee: P.K. Bose (Madhya Pradesh)

 

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