Mohun Bagan started the journey in this year’s Federation Cup with a goalless draw against Churchill Brothers. Both sides had a number of chances to score but none of them managed to.

 Mohun Bagan started the match with a 4-4-2 formation. Arindam was the custodian. The four defenders were – Nirmal, Eche, Khelemba and Lalrozama Fanai. The midfield consisted of  –  Denson, Masih , Jewel and Nabi. Tolgay paired skipper, Odafa up front. With both Denson and Masih operating in the centre of the midfield, Jewel had to play in the right wing. Jewel played a number of matches as a winger last season, and it is no surprise that he doesn’t enjoy playing in that position. Today was not different either, as Jewel was ineffective in the right wing, though his shot was saved by the wood-work, in the 30^th minute. Also Rakesh Masih was very slow in the midfield, allowing his counterparts Beto and Lenny to move up and create pressure on our defense. The best chance for Mohun Bagan in the first half, fell to Tolgay in the 41^st minute.  He went one-on-one with Churchill Brothers’ keeper, Sandip Nandy, but failed to score.  Odafa also got a chance to score in the 28^th minute, but his shot went over the bar.  Arindam also made two great saves (26^th and 37^th minute) in the first half.

As play resumed after the lemon break, Santosh Kashyap, replaced Masih with Manish Bhargav. This move resulted in two things – 1) Allowed Jewel to play freely in his own position at the centre of the midfield. 2) Increased the mobility in the right wing. Mohun Bagan made a brilliant start to the 2^nd half as they managed to put a lot of pressure on the Churchill defense. The Mariners earned a corner in the 48^th minute and the woodwork again came to the rescue of Churchill as Denson’s shot was denied by the post in the 50^th minute. In the 52^nd minute the Green and Maroon Brigade were denied a genuine penalty and shockingly Tolgay was booked for play-acting. In the 63^rd minute, Tolgay got injured and had to be substituted by Sabeeth. Despite Tolgay’s absence Mohun Bagan continued to attack and create chances. In the 65^th minute Fanai moved up in overlap, down the left, to find Nabi, who in turn found Odafa, whose shot was again denied by the woodwork. Beto scored in the 73^rd minute, but thankfully his goal was ruled out due to offside. Mohun Bagan earned a number of corners in the last 10 minutes, but failed to make use of them. Coach made his last change in the 87^th minute, when he replaced Nabi with Snehasish, but it did not make any change to the scoreline, which ended 0-0.

Team: Arindam, Nirmal, Eche, Khelemba, Lalrozama, Jewel, Denson, Masih(Manish Bhargav HT), Nabi(Snehasish 87’), Tolgay(Sabeeth 63’), Odafa.

Yellow Cards: Eche, Tolgay, Khelemba.

NEXT MATCH: Mohun Bagan v/s Air India [22/9/2012 at 7 p.m. (I.S.T.)]

The All India Football Federation has declared the tentative fixtures for this year’s I-League. The schedule for Mohun Bagan is as follows:

The 20-member squad for Federation Cup will be –

Goal: Arindam Bhattacharya, Shilton Paul; Defence: Nirmal Chettri, Aiborlang Khongjee, Celestine Anyichie Echezona, Khelemba Meetei, Lalrozama Fanai, Warundeep Singh; Midfield: Manish Maithani, Manish Bharghav, Rakesh Masih, Biswajit Saha, Sk. Jewel Raja, Syed Rahim Nabi, Snehasish Chakraborty, Denson Devadas; Striker: Odafa Onyeke Okolie(C), Tolgay Ozbey, Sabeeth Sathyan, Anil Kumar.

Group B – Group of death and one of the most difficult group consisting of Mohun Bagan, Churchill Brothers, Air India and Md Sporting. The matches are to be played in Siliguri. The fixture is as below:

September 20: Air India VS Mohammedan SC (3.00 PM) 
September 20: Churchill Brothers VS Mohun Bagan (7.00 PM)
September 22: Mohammedan SC VS Churchill Brothers (3.00 PM)
September 22: Mohun Bagan VS Air India (7.00 PM) 
September 24: Mohun Bagan VS Mohammedan SC (7.00 PM) 
September 24: Air India VS Churchill Brothers(3.00 PM)

Mohun Bagan and Churchill are the front runners in the group however the other two teams can create upset and change equations in the group.

Mohun Bagan:

A lot has been discussed about our team in the group. Nothing new to say. In short the success depends on three players in three positions – Eche in defence, Denson in midfield and Odafa upfront. A lot on depend on these three players. besides Nabi/Jewel/Tolgay are the three pillars in the team.

Churchill Brothers : 

A new look team under Subhash Bhowmik. A strong team on paper but not tested and seriously devoid of any match practice. But we have to remember that they started their preseason camp earliest among all Indian teams.

The fulcrum of the team remains to be midfield general Beto and the success of the team will depend on him. Besides they have a good striker in Henry from Gabon who did quite well last year. Besides they have taken two players from Lebanon – Bilal the centre back and Akram, a striker. They have two good wing halfs in Binesh Balan and Stephen Dias. They also have two very capable midfielders in Tomba SIngh and Lenny (who did well in Nehru Cup). In defence they have Ravanan and Denzil Franco. The GK position will be managed by the experienced Sandip Nandy backed by young and talented Felix. Churchill have recruited two players from Pailan who did well. They are Gurtej Singh in defense and Bikramjit SIngh in midfield which gives good balance to the team. Overall a very balanced team.

We have a tough opponent to start with, however their defense looks a bit weaker specially Bilal is yet to be tested in Indian wet conditions.

Hope we can defeat Churchill and take a major step forward towards getting back the coveted trophy.

Md Sporting :

The team under Alok Mukherjee remains to be unpredictable as last few years. One day they may have a brilliant match and the next day they look a most ordinary side. They enjoyed few good wins in the season and also had a bad matches already. The forward line looks quite compact with Sunday, Alfred and Ashim. All the strikers are among goals which is a good sign. The midfield includes veteran Jayanta Sen as the main man. Alfred is also playing a bit behind to assist the midfield. The Korean, who doesn’t look superb, but is good with his free kicks. The wings will be managed by Gourango, Mukhter, Manirul and Krishanu Banerjee. The defence mainly consists of Mohun Bagan discards in Kingshuk, Azim, Dhanrajan. They have recruited a new foreigner in that position namely Daniel. There is little or no idea regarding this player at this moment. The GK will be managed by Somnath Khara and Arnab Sen Sharma. Overall a good team and can create some upset but not my candidate to qualify for the semis.

Air India :

The Durand winners under ex Indian captain, Godfrey Perriera will also be a tough opposition to play with. Recently they have recruited three ex Mohun Baganis in Souvik Chackroborty, Micky Fernandes and Branco (Anjan da will say Sourav Chack too… but Sourav as of now is a Mohun Bagan player). The three foreigners are Tomba in defence, Junior (ex Sporting/Prayag and Salgoacar – good player but injury prone) and Henry who did moderately well in last year I League along with Manandeep. I don’t know what happened to the Japanese midfielder who looked quite good last year. John Dias, the experienced centre back has also joined Air India this year.

Anyways to keep it simple we have the team to beat all these teams and qualify for the semi final… but no easy match in hand

 (From the desk of Souvik Goswami)

Mohun Bagan thrash West Bengal Police 6-0. Nirmal Chettry was the first of the four different Mohun Bagan players who scored for Bagan today. Others whose names were there in the score card included Odafa (2), Sabeeth(2) and Tolgay.

Nirmal opened the account in the 5th minute when his header found the ball kissing the nets. Within 2 minutes his brilliant through found Odafa who bull dozed into WBP penalty area with two defenders trying to block him- and finish off in style (2-0).

Jewel Raja scored a goal before the half time – but his goal was cancelled as the referee felt he was offside.

In the second half Sabeeth scored two successive goals – first in the 50th minute and thenin the 64th minute. Odafa scored the 5th and Tolgay – who came as a replacement in the second half scored the sixth goal.

Bagan players missed 4 opportunities to score- Jewel, Nirmal, Tolgay and Manish Bhargav are to be blamed for the same.

Bagan will now meet Churchill Brothers on 20th September in Siliguri for the Federation Cup group league match. Other teams in the group include Air India and Mohammedan Sporting.

Mohun Bagan’s jerseys for season 2012-13 have been launched in the club tent today. The new jersey (home) will be a maroon / green one – diagonally dividing the two colours from left top corner to right bottom corner – marron being on top. The club’s emblem, sponsor and co-sponsor names will be on white along with the jersey number. The away jersey will be on white with the hards in green and maroon. The names and logos will be in maroon. FILA will be the new co-sponsor for the year. Odafa was handed over the home jersey while Tolgay donned the away one. Three players who were facilitated today – Nabi, nirmal and Jewel – also donned the home jerseys.

Mohun Bagan under-14 won the ONGC Himachal Pradesh Youth Football Festival Tournament by beating Sambalpur FA 2-0 in the final here on Sunday. In the semifinal they won against Mahalpur Football Academy by 1-0.

Meanwhile in Kolkata the IFA fiasco continues. While IFA is verifying the videos to take action against Bagan officials, the parent body kept mum about taking action against a city outfit for hackling another club officials who refused to play in a non-playing condition. The misbehaviour of the club officials, infamous for beating a brasilian team while losing 0-1 (but later decvlared winner by IFA even though they had beaten up the foreign team while losing 0-1 and India was suspended by FIFA) or stopping the game (with just 8 minutes to spear) while losing against Peerless 0-2.

mohunbaganclub.com has learnt (as statement given by Hon. Sports Ministyer of West Bengal) that IFA requested for the flood light not to complete the football match but to ensure the supporters (known for hooliganism) do not damage the stadium further or injure players and officials but IFA is yet to comment on the same. This discriminationof IFa was pointed out by Bagan officials and now IFA seek action against the same (one must remember recently actions were taken against Bagan in AIFF level which people allege is an outcome of personal problems of a member of AIFF and IFA and a Bagan official)

Bagan wins 4-0 against J&K Football association. Jewel, Tolgay, Manish and Odafa scored for Bagan. Earlier on 7th Sep colts won against SAI FA,Kangra 13-0.

Bagan Under 14 won against Kalicut Football Academy by a margin of 9-0 in a Group A match of 1st ONGC Himachal Pradesh Youth Football Festival here at Nahan, Himachal Pradesh. Dipankar ( 4 goals) Ferozuddin (3 goals) Sanchayan (1 goal) and Arghadeep (1 goal) for Bagan. Bagan will play SAI Kangra on 7th September.

Mohun Bagan has moved into final of the Airlines Gold Cup. Mohun Bagan won the semifinal convincingly against George Telegraph by 3-0. Jewel Raja (1) and Tolgay Ozbey (2) scored for Bagan. Tolgay, Odafa and Stanley missed some easy chances – otherwise the score line could have half a dozen for Bagan

Mohun Bagan win the first game they played in the season today. Tolgay Ozbey struck twice to secure Bagan’s first win of the season, 3-0 over George Telegraph. This was his first appearance for Bagan. Jewel Raja scored the first goal of the game. all three were scored in the second half.

Bagan started the game keeping Odafa in the bench, as per the statements given by the coach last evening. Stanley and Tolgay did create some panic but the team was missing Odafa badly. George Telegraph also did well and was creating panic in Bagan box from time to time. Eche and Mehraj did well as central defenders and foiled GT moves.

It was too early to talk about central midfield – however the supporters felt Bagan can do better.

Odafa came out in the second half and started pressing George defense jointly with Tolgay. George defense could not bear the pressure and  they conceded three goals in 20 minutes.

Bagan will now face Mohammedan Sporting in the final, expected to happen on 15th September 2012.

Team : Shilton, Rajib, Mehrajuddin, Eche(Warundeep) ,Biswajit (Lalrinfela),  Bhargav,  Denson, Lalrozama, Jewel, Stanley (Odafa), Tolgey

Meanwhile Rahim Nabi signed for Bagan  today.

4 more players sign for Bagan today. They include –
Tolgay Ozbey , Jewel Raja, Nirmal Chhetri and Sudipta Banerjee