This is an opponent who took away full 3 points from us in this year’s CFL encounter. Each member of the squad was aware of this fact. Revenge was due. However, the options for the Mariners were limited as majority of the key squad members are either in the list of injury or are unavailable due to national duty. Bagan started in a cautious note and slowly started building up the momentum with couple of early movements. As the game progressed, Mohun Bagan changed the gear when Asim’s side volley was narrowly saved by the opposition goalkeeper and Sukumar-Barreto-Chiddi combination came close to scoring. Mohun Bagan received a sudden blow when the coach had to bring in Harpreet in place of Barreto, who was limping and visibly in pain. However, immediately after the substitution the supporters had a sigh of relief as Asim scored from a well directed cross from Gaurango (1-0). Mariners went into lemon break leading by a sole goal.

 

The game became rough and physical as the opponent became desperate for equalizer. In the process, Harpreet was injured and had to be substituted with Rahul Kumar. The match official had a blind eye when Chiddi and Ishfaq were tripped intentionally inside the penalty box and in both the occasions the Mariners were deprived of genuine penalty. On the contrary, Kingsuk Debnath was shown yellow card for trivial offence. When the match official finally blew the final whistle, although the scoreline remained 1-0 in favour of the Mariners; it was not so happy moment for our club as the big names like Barreto have already registered their names in the injury list.

 

Mariners’ think tanks need to spend more mid-night oil in order to come up with a strategy for the next match when the majority of the squad would be waiting in the queue outside doctors’ chamber.