Mohun Bagan manages to secure point in spite of poor show. Katsumi missed a penalty and two of his shots hit the post, while a fourth one narrowly went out. The only good thing Sabeeth did was scoring the equalizer in dying moments.

As Bagan team fails to win in two back to back matches, the team is getting ready for the iLeague. With its captain out for injury, Bagan officials have decided to release Antony Pereira – mohunbaganclub.com has learnt. Bagan managed to draw against George Telegraph and Peerless after the team was trailing – and will definitely miss Antony’s service.

Team for iLeague (first two matches) –

Sandip, Shilton, Sali, Ravinder, Aibor, Rowilson, Kingshuk, Eche, Nicolau, Ram, Rajib, Denson, Katsumi, Zakeer, Adil, Sabeeth, Eric, Sankar

IT will be interesting to see how Karim repair the gaps that are been created between the attacking,  middle and defensive third.

Bagan lost points in their second match in Sahara CFL. George Telegraph took the lead in the 39th minute of the match via Tauras Mane. While Katsumi Yusa equalized the scoreline in the 73rd minute by a brilliant goal. But Bagan couldn’t manage to get full three points from the match due to miss chances of their striking fornce. Sankar Oraon missed at least 2 open net, while Manish missed one. Otherwise Bagan could have won the match by a healthy margin.

Mohun Bagan got past Railways FC in their first official match in a style. CS Sabeeth’s header in the first minute of the game gave Bagan an early lead. In the 12th minute Adil increased the lead. Manish and Sabeeth scored one goal each in the second half, though Bagan conceded a goal in the injury time of first half.

Sabeeth scored the first goal in the first minute of the match when he headed a cross from Katsumi as RFC goalie missed the flight. RFC men did not give up the hope and tried to come back in the match for next 10 mins. In the 12th minute Adil received a pass from Shankar and shot it well into RFC net.

For next 10 mins Bagan tried to increase the margin but failed. Nicolau incidentally got a booking. For next 10 mins once again the Railways men tried to reduce the amrgin but Bagan defense did well to stop the moves.

Soon Sankar got a booking for holding the ball in offside position. For next 5 mins Bagan tried to increase the margin but failed.

When the spectators were looking at their watches and waiting for the long whistle to half time, Orok reduced the margin from a powerful right footer. The teams went for the break as the scoreline showed 2-1 in favour of Bagan.

Karim made a change at the very beginning of second half- he introduced Kingshuk Debnath in the defense in lieu of Nicolau.  In the 50th minute Manish Bhargav long ranger made it 3-1.

For next 20 mins Bagan increased the pressure on Railways FC – but failed to convert the opportunities to goals. In the 73rd minute Sabeeth increased  the margin. For next 15 mins Bagan attempted to increase the margin but failed.

From time to time Railways was also going for counter attack but they were weak to reduce the margin. In the 84th minute Karim introduced Anthony for Shankar.
In the 89th minute he introduced Rajib Ghorui for Adil Khan.

Team:

Shilton, Aibor, Adil (Rajib – 89′), Rowilson, Wahid, Manish, Denson, Yusa, Nicolau (Kingshuk 46′), Shankar(Anthony 84′), Sabeeth

Mohun Bagan retains Wriddhiman Saha, Subhomoy Das, Debabrata Das, Sanjib Goel, Alok Pratap Singh, Abhijit Sikdar, Arindam Ghosh, Sultan Ahmed, Aritra Chatterjee, Laxmi Ratan Shukla and Md. Shami. The team will have Joyjeet Basu, Amit Das, Sougata Dutta, B. Amit , P. Laxman in the team this year.