Team Mohun Bagan will fly to Bangalore today after-noon.T.D. Shubhas Bhowmick called morning practice session and after that the team will be off to Bangalore to play the match against HAL. Jose Barreto is ruled out due to injury from this match. Apart from Barreto Manish and Souvick are also not in the team due to injury. In the first leg Bagan faced defeat against the Bangalore outfit. But that was the era of Stanley Rozario and this is the era of T.D. Subhas Bhowmick. So we must hope for a better result for Bagan.

The team selected for the match against HAL at Bangalore is mentioned below.
Sangram Mukherjee, Shilton Paul, Surkumar Singh, Deepak Kumar Mandal, Anwar Ali, N. Mohanraj, Nagimuddin Mollick, Kingshuk Debnath, Dhanarajan R., Snehasish Chakraborty, Jayanta Sen, Rakesh Masih, Ishfaq Ahmed (captain),Satish Kumar, Gouranga Dutta, Dipendu Dowary, Muritala Ali, Chidi Edeh.
Technical Director: Subhas Bhowmick
Coach : Sujit Chakraborty
Manager: Dr. Pratim Roy
Gobindaprasad Deb, Atindranath Sen.

Last time referee Pratap Singh and Saji Kurian ensure that a penalty is given against Bagan when the ball hit Surkumar. This was enough to take two points from Bagan. Today referee Costa went one step ahead and canceled a clean goal of Chidi Edeh to ensure Bagan loses two more points. This show, that was seen in Fed Cup final continues to entertain Indian Football referees fraternity.

It all started when Jose Barreto was pulled down near the Pune FC box – and referee gave foul against Barreto. This happened two more time when Barreto was hit from behind and fouls were awarded against him. At one time one thought a foul in PuneFC box was enough for awarding penalty against Bagan. Bagan was lucky tht referee Costa did not opt for the same.

Bagan suffered a setback mush before the game with no Ashim, Muritala, Manish, Souvik, Mohanraj in the list for various reasons. With practically no central midfielder – Bagan failed to control the central midfield.

But a rock solid defense made sure all Pune attacks were foiled. However Pune did test Bagan defense and once the ball hit the cross bar even.

Deepak was rightly adjudged as the Man of the Match.

Referee Pratap Singh awarded KEB a penalty in the 8th minute when the ball hit Surkumar’s hand. In many cases for last few seasons Mohun Bagan was deprived of penalties (if you recall the Fed Cup final – a similar handball incident happened) . And of course Saji Kurian was the Asst. Referee

That was the beginning. Soon al knew that they match officials were even worse than those in Fed Cup final this year – or those from CRA. One wonders hw these blokes get a chance to officiate a high tension match like the one today.

With one hundred thousand spectators around  ( 60-40 for Mohun Bagan) these matches should be conducted by best referees. Since there is no quality referee avaialble in India – AIFF  should think of bringing a referee from AFC.

Sanju Pradhan scored when referee awarded a penalty for KEB as the ball hit Surkumar’s hand. Barreto briliance made it 1-1- in the 30th minute when he headed the ball into the net from 10 yards!

The rest ? free style wrestling by two teams – mostly by Mehtab, Sanju, Nauba, Barreto, Ishfaq – and Gurwinder and Ashim rightly shown marching orders.

What about Nabi and coach Morgan – had they been in EPL they would gave got bans for at least 2 matches and a huge penalty – lucky Nabi and Morgan – they were in India.

Mohun Bagan : Shilton, Surkumar, Anwar, Deepak, Mohonraj, Isfaq (Snehasis) ,Rakesh, Manish (Jayanta), Muritala (Ashim), Barreto, Chidi. 
East Bengal : Sandip, Naoba, Okpara, Gurwinder, Soumik (Nabi), Sanju, Penn, Mehtab, Sushant (Ravindar), Sushil (Nirmal), Tolgey.