ONGC - NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE 2006

                        HOME ::   NFL 06 NEWS ::  SCHEDULE/RESULTS ::  POINTS TALLY :: TEAM :: 
                                              

16th May, 2006 : Mohun Bagan dominated the match completely and defeated Mohammedan Sporting by 1-0. Mohun Bagan got many chance to increase their goal but could not due to poor finish. Ibrahim played well as a skimmer and from his pass Dulal, Sushil and Coffi missed 3 easy chances. Ibrahim is in no way a striker and the past coach made that mistake by continuously playing him as striker due to which Mohun Bagan suffered badly. Biswajit today told that, "If we had a few more points in first league, our team could have been the champions." Du got his fourth man of the match award today, which itself is a great achievement. He was as usual superb today both in his defensive quality, not allowing Rodriguez to move in the first half due to which the latter played from much behind in second half and the Mohammedan could not do anything in the 2nd half. Du scored the all important goal in 27th minute of 2nd half from a measured free kick from left by Dharamjit, which he headed to perfection beating Gopal Das completely. Rodriguez missed an easy chance in the first half. Keeping in mind that Mehtab, Subrata, Mehraj, and Tomba, the key members of the first team and also Noel and Firoze not in team, it was a great performance by the Mariners.

For Mohun Bagan, Imran had a relatively good match and did not make any mistake. As already mentioned, Du had a great match. Maria was also good and he has improved a lot in the last few years. The two side backs Dulal and Subhashish both were confident and especially Subhashish was better in terms of overlapping down the left flank. Coffi disappointed today and was rightly replaced by Jerri, although he also failed to impress. Basudeb proved his worth in central midfield position once again. Dharamjit was superb, the best player in the midfield and he switched flanks to perfection and often delivered perfect centers towards opponent goal. After Biswajit joined, Chinmoy has become a regular member of the first team and indeed he is having a great time and performing to perfection. Akum came in place of Basudeb with 2 minutes left and did not have much to do. Ibrahim was good today as a skimmer and he gave some very good passes to others but it was his poor finishing skill that let down the Mariners in this NFL. Dipendu was not in his best of touch today, he must have been tensed with 1 goal remaining for his 200th goal. Sushil came in his place and missed the easiest chance of the match after a solo run down the left by Ibrahim ended in the ball to Sushil who had empty goal in front of him, but he missed an easy chance, though Sushil definitely has improved a lot from last season and is slowly gaining in confidence as a single striker.

21st April, 2006 : MB today defeated Air India by 2-1. Du and Mehtab was the scorers. See below for the exclusive pictures of all the goals of the match.

19th March, 2006 : Elephant is always Elephant. You know that when an elephant is struck into mud, everyone can kick him. But when he once comes out, no one dares to come close of him. So is now our MB. We fought relegation for 2 successive years, this year also we fought the same, and finally the Elephant has come out and started walking with his royal style. Some people started to imagine about the future, they forget we were 3 times NFL winners, we introduced football among the Bengalis after the historic 1911 IFA Shield win. We inspired the independence movement against the British. Some people tried to forget all these history. They forget that the name of the institution is Mohun Bagan. But still the name is Mohun Bagan which is now proved and will remain forever.

So far it is the most dramatic year of NFL, which we played. So much ups and down was never seen in MB's matches earlier.

After the last match , near the referee's dressing room, I asked Mr. Riaz-Ul-Hawk why he disallowed the goal of Sushil Singh and showed
yellow to Du. He said that the goal was disallowed as it was a hand ball by Sushil and Du was shown yellow for tackling from behind on Dudu. But when I came home, the TV viewers did not agree with Mr. Hawk's both claim. We shall suffer mostly on Du's absence rather than the goal disallowed. However, Feroz and Mehrajuddin are there to fill the vacancy of Du.

I never wrote about opponents especially on EB, when we do not play against. But now I can write a few words to understand the pre-match status.

First of all, I have seen that EB's coach is a good one (may be better than their previous coach). So some care must be taken against his game planning. The two foreign recruit from Bangladesh are also good in areal and body power. And some players are
individually good, like Nabi, Baichung etc. Against such an opponent, we should not exhaust our stamina till the end of the match.. The
players can run more, should be fielded. Our coach should instruct the boys accordingly and he must possess some surprise in the 2nd
half. Since he has good option in his reserve bench, he must be able to deliver some surprise later in the game. During the 4 games under
Biswajit, only I have seen one mistake on his part, i.e. he replaced Ibrahim by Tomba and went in single striker system during
the last 15 minutes of the Sporting de Goa match. He must keep 2 strikers at all times. If he replaced Ibrahim, he should have fielded Dipendu, I think.

In the 1st leg of NFL against EB, we played defensive in the initial stage, conceding more and more pressure on us. In the later 2nd half,
one defender was withdrawn and Tomba was introduced to play attacking. It was a dangerous move and could fetch us even defeat
also. This type of suicidal move should not be repeated. Always try to play balance football keeping 5 men in defence all times. Baichung
should be checked by man marking, preferably Maria. In Sporting de Goa match I have seen that the Goan players have understood Ibrahim's turning and flicking. They never allowed Ibrahim to turn and flick, always kept him under double covering both from behind and front. Thus Ibrahim was flop against Sporting de Goa. So this should be kept in mind. Do not clear the ball whimsically, try to feed others when you can control the ball. Ball possession should be more.

Lastly we should not concede more corners and free kicks near goal area. EB have good headers like Marshall, Ndem etc. No unnecessary
foul. Thus summing up, if we play to our potential and play a little balanced football and not too defensive or too attacking, we will surely defeat EB.

I can tell some good win against EB in the past, when we had weaker side : -
1) 1987 Rover Semi. 2) 1989 CFL. 3) 1990 CFL. 4) 1995 CFL. 5) 2002 CFL and many more.

REPORT: MR. R. D. BURMAN (THIS IS THE NICKNAME HE USES TO WRITE, HE IS A MOHUN BAGAN FAN, REGULARLY SEES MB MATCH SINCE 1960s)

23rd March, 2006 : Mariners defeated Salgaokar by 3 goals today. The scorers were Sushil (39'), Ibrahim(77') and Du(84').

Today Bagan went into the field with little change in the winning combination. The defense line was having Manas, Du, Sanjeev Maria and Dulal. Noel was the defensive screen and before him Chinmoy, Dharamjit and Coffi were the midfielders and Ibrahim and Sushil were there upfront. The first 8 minutes the match was 50-50 with both sides  having an attacking mood. Soon, Bagan took control of the midfield and it was noticed that few set-piece movements of one-touch plays started taking place. On the left it was Manas-Coffi-Chinmoy-Ibrahim while on the right it was Dharamjit-Dulal-Sushil. Du and Noel were there in between the left and right plank. Soon there was a panic in Salgaokar defense and a brilliant goal by Sushil increased their frustration level. Ibrahim passed the ball to Dharamjit who passes it to Sushil in the penalty box. A power kick from Sushil didn't make mistake in finding the net.

Ibrahim,Coffi and Noel kept testing the Salgaokar custodian Juje Siddi time and again. Even Sanjeev Maria was going upfront to create chances.At the same time Salgaokar counter attack failed to get pass the Bagan defense. A Manas pass found Coffi who forwarded the ball to Ibrahim and Ibrahim dribbled 4 Salgaokar players and lobbed the ball over the Goan custodian to score his first for Bagan.Later , after the match was over, Ibrahim told that the floodgate has opened and he'll score more goals for Bagan in future.

Coffi takes very goof corner kick from the left side. one of these deadly corner kicks found Du header and Juje had nothing to do but to observe the ball rolled into the net. This goal took place just after Du was seriously injured by Emmanuel, a foul worth seeing the marching  order; though the referee limited himself by booking Emmanuel.

Mehraj, who was not in the field today, felt that the current coach has worked upon the team spirit and all the players are now giving their 100%.

Du , the MoM of the game, feels that though the previous coaches were equally good, this coach has worked upon the team spirit and understanding between the players. He's sure that Bagan will continue playing good football for the rest of the season.

Biswajit Bhattacharya thanked the two previous coaches for the conditions of the players and was found happy with the team's performance.

19th March, 2006 : Mariners defeated Air India 2-0 in Mumbai. The goals were scored by Dharamjit and Coffi. Manas Das was adjudged Man of the Match. Manas Das, Noel Wilson, Maria, Du and Dharamjit and last but not the least Coffi had a great match. Ibrahim and Sushil missed a lot of chances. Mohun Bagan are now placed 4th in the league table with 11 points from 9 matches.

16th March, 2006 : Mariners defeated Fransa by 2-0 today by goals from Coffi and Sushil. MB dominated the first half completely with Coffi playing brilliant football down the left flank with good support from Subhashish as left back. Ibrahim also had a great game with great passes to Sushil who missed many good chances to score, though Ibrahim was the culprit in missing the easiest chance of the match. Inclusion of coach Biswajit has definitely worked wonders for the Mariners who really put up a spirited performance today though in 2nd half Fransa attacked more and got opening in a couple of occasions though could not beat Subrata Pal. Sushil goal was scored by individual brilliance and the Coffi goal was the result of a combined move via Ibrahim to Sushil whose pass Coffi flicked inside goal.

The next match is on March 19th at 3.30 pm in Mumbai. The match may not be beamed live in Zee Sports, so for live update please watch www.mohunbaganclub.com.

                                 Bishu'da and his team      

5th February, 2006 : 

The above picture shows the goal missed by Ibrahim. Just see how he missed the goal. With no one disturbing him on both sides and no one behind him, he shoots the ball as if he is clearing the ball or he is scoring a baseball goal. Still this kind of worthless striker has played the last 630 minutes without Dipendu Biswas getting chance. Any Indian striker like Jerry/Sushil Singh/Harvinder/Manjit would have scored from the chances that he and Coffi, another genius are missing for the last 7 matches. Had half of them had been scored, MB by this time would have been fighting for championship. Still Jahar fields him in every match and also Coffi. Even ace players like Basudeb don't get chance to play in every match. Why should MB suffer due to negligence of coach and his inefficiency to field the right combination of players? Or is he playing Ibrahim due to some kind of pressure. Whatever may be reason, who are the sufferers? The name Mohun Bagan and its millions of fans all over the world. Dipendu saved the day for MB by scoring from a head off a Coffi free-kick. For the Salgaokar goal, Du and Imran should be blamed. Du was standing besides the scorer who was completely unmarked and Imran did not charge out to get the ball. 

1st February 2006 :  Same old story again. Bagan dominated the match but could not score. Midfield and defence really played well but due to two all time worst striking force, ever any time had in NFL, Bagan could not score an field goal for 540 min of NFL. Dipendu again did not play today. Coffi was again brought as substitute and was a total failure. Maria, Du had a terrific game and also Tomba in midfield. Mehtab missed the easiest chance by heading out off a Tomba cross with goalkeeper having missed the flight.

29th January, 2006 : Mariners held by Dempo in their first away match.  Though first half was dominated by Dempo and got many scoring opportunities thanks to a defensive formation by coach Jahar Das. The lemon time replacement of bringing in Mehraj in place of Dempo proved a good move as MB dominated 2nd half and came close to scoring goals in at least 4 occasions. Akum started the match well but as match progressed he could not perform and was correctly replaced wrongly by Coffi (Dipendu should have come in as replacement). Coffi again had a terrible match and did nothing good like other days. Comparatively, Ibrahim played much better in 2nd half and took few brisk shots, the closest one was a left footer attempt from the left side of the box. In 1st half, Tomba missed a open sitter off Ibrahim pass which was saved from goal line. In 2nd half, Dempo went into lead by Bolaji shot which Subrata could do nothing. Subrata otherwise had a great match today. Mohun Bagan equalized from a penalty via Mehtab.

Basudeb as a late replacement had a great 8 minutes. From a Mehraj free kick, he took a terrific header (Sishir style) which just went off goal. Overall an inspiring 2nd half proved that this set of players can attack also. If coach could have understood that! An extremely tough match is next in line vs Sporting de Goa.

25th January 2006 :  Bagan humiliated - yet again. It was a 5 minutes blitz - from 34th minute to 38th minute. That was enough for JCT to dump Bagan 2-0. In the 33rd minute, Praveen Kumar received a ball from Julius Akpele and passed it to Johnson Banner who made no mistake to volleying the same into Bagan goal. In  another occasion

after 4 minutes, Renedy sends a through to Praveen who overpowered Sanjeev Maria to run for 30 yards and kicked the ball into the near post to fulfill the quota. Bagan actually began the game with a different note, when in first 15 minutes they got three chances to score - the opportunity was missed by Ibrahim, Mehtab and Dharamjit. But every time the mill men came into attack, they were successful in creating panic in Bagan defense.

The key player of the game was Marcos Perreira, ex Bagan medio, who along with another exBagan Renedy Singh controlled the midfield very well. Marcos, along with Julius, Johnson and

Praveen played very well indeed. Marcos' selection  for MoM award was justified.

On the other hand Bagan coach Jahar Das' strategy was widely criticised. Why did he rest Feroze in the

beginning and put Rajib Ahmed in the stopper position, was not known. Also, instead of Manjit why was Sushil Kumar in the first 11 is once again unknown to the analysts.

There were some goons found in the gallery busy verbally abusing the Bagan fans who were protesting against the dismal performance of the team and questioning the poor recruits for the NFL.