Snehasish Chakraborty signed for Mohun Bagan today. After he has made an appeal to IFA yesterday, they decided to reduce his fine and Snehasish had to pay Rs. 50,000 as fine. Along with Snehasish, Tomba, Barreto, Habibur and Chiddi also signed for Mohun Bagan today.

The Union sports ministry has invited former India captain Samar (Badru) Banerjee at the Rashtrapati Bhavan on August 29 for the awards function on National Sports Day. The invitation has been personally sent by sports minister MS Gill. Meanwhile, Indian football took a big leap towards the future at the Salt Lake Stadium here on Monday.

The completion of the country’s first artificial pitch in a stadium — also a first amongst SAARC nations –was marked by the presence of some stalwarts from Indian football’s ‘golden era’. Sailen Manna, PK Banerjee, Chuni Goswami, Samar (Badru) Banerjee and Tulsidas Balaram lent a different pitch to a celebratory mood that echoed through the prancing boots of a hundred kids.

In fact, it was the presence of the past greats that lightened up the media conference called by new sports minister Kanti Ganguly to mark the completion of the work. 

 “This is a big thing for Indian football and we should all be proud,” said Manna in his now feeble voice, his strong message reverberating across the stadium. 

Even more ecstatic was Tulsidas Balaram, who was quick to quash all apprehensions over the safety of players on the artificial turf, or the viability of organizing the IFA Shield matches before the Fifa certification comes in. 

“The other grounds we have in Kolkata are no heaven for footballers. Such a pitch was the need of the moment and we should go ahead without worrying to much about the teething problems. We should start playing from today,” he thundered. 

Balaram, a member of the Chuni Goswami-led team that won gold at the 1962 Asian Games, was also not ready to buy the adaptability problems that the teams in the Shield may face after playing on the other grounds in and around the city, saying adjustment is the name of the game. 

Utpal Ganguly, the IFA secretary, would still be taking the opinion of a few experts before the semi of the Shield to be convinced that safety of players in not compromised. He also plans to provide teams a few training sessions in addition to a practice match. 

PK Banerjee, another member of that 1962 team, suggested the area beyond the synthetic track be covered so that no slush is carried onto the field.

COURTESY: TIMES OF INDIA

 

Today Railway Minister, Mamata Banerjee announced that Maidan station will be renamed in the name of Goshto Pal. Mohun Bagan won practice match 4-0 against Southern Samity.Mohun Bagan Under-13 team and MBSFA team were present along with General Secretary Anjan Mitra, coach Amiya Ghosh, Chuni Goswami, Shibaji Banerjee in Netaji Indoor Stadium and payed homage to late Sports Minister Subhash Chakraborty.

Sunday will be an offday for team and from Monday there will be 4 days of camp where team will stay in Hotel Landmark and practice in club ground. Mohun Bagan’s first match in IFA Shield is expected to be scheduled on September 3rd.

Mohun Bagan today won their practice match against Southern Samity by 4-0. Chiddi scored 2 goals and Marcos and Kartick scored 1 goal each.

In today’s match, first team comprised of Sangram, Biswajit Saha, Vashan, Karan Atwal, Mandi, Snehasish, Kulu, Marcos, Tomba, Branco and Chiddi. Mariners started in 4-4-2 formation and within 2 minutes scored their first goal, Vashan gave a long ball to Chiddi, who nicely dribbled past 1 player and placed the ball past goalkeeper in goal to make it 1-0. Mohun Bagan dominated the match throughout but could not increase their margin further before half time. Tomba and Chiddi played very well today. Tomba looked very agile during both attack and also while falling back and helping the defenders. Mandi played as right back, he was otherwise okay but sometimes was not in his position and coach was giving instruction "Mandi get back to position." Biswajit made few errors, he looked slighly off form today and once he reacted late and Southern almost scored a goal; however, Biswajit is a very good player and so far he has performed very well in all the practice matches so far. Karan Atwal who is improving on his performance made 2 errors today, once when Mohun Bagan defenders went up to lay offside trap for opponent, he was not in line with his defenders and almost evoked danger. In another occasion, in second half, he missed a golden chance to score. In midfield, Kulu was a little disappointing in first half but in second half he came back strongly and played really well.

     

In 2nd half, Karim made few changes and brought in Shilton, Habibur, Santa Kumar, Subho Kumar, and Kartick. After match, Karim said, "I changed my formation and went to 4-2-3-1 in 2nd half. This is the formation which Liverpool plays nowadays in many matches. This means there are 2 holding midfielders and the remaining 3 will go up to support the lone striker. By this particular formation, team becomes more attacking. I might use this few times this year when required. I might also think about the option of pushing Marcos up sometimes behind Chiddi. I am overall happy with team’s performance."

Chiddi scored the 2nd goal by heading the ball in from Santa’s well measured cross in 2nd half. Habibur who came as replacement in 2nd half also had quite a good match running down the right flank, and from one of his center Chiddi’s header narrowly missed target. Marcos-Chiddi combination resulted in the 3rd goal for Mariners. Marcos gave a through pass to Chiddi whose shot was blocked by goalkeeper, and Marcos in turn pushed the ball inside empty goal to make it 3-0. In another attack, from Santa’s cross, Subho Kumar’s head hit cross bar and went to Karan Atwal who failed to score from a hand shaking distance with goalkeeper out of position. 10 minutes before final whistle, Karim brought in Ramluah, Manish and Rino Anto. Kartick Kisku who played as right half scored the 4th goal from Kulu’s pass. Before the goal, one of his effort hit barpost.

PHOTOGRAPH: TRIDIP SHEET