Mohun Bagan faced a shocking defeat against bottom placed Sporting Clube de Goa by 1-2 in a match of ONGC I-League round 17 at Yuba Bharati Krirangan. Full strength Bagan team brought the taste of first victory to the Goan outfit this year while themselves moved too far from the championship.

Earlier Bagan took the lead at the 12th minute of the match when Barreto’s angular flick of a low Snehasish Chakraborty centre found the net. (1-0). What a superb goal it was!! But that was the end for Bagan. After that they lost control of the match and three foreign recruits of Sporting started disturbing the Bagan defence line.

In the 32nd minute of the match Sporting equalized the score when Junior headed the ball for Adil Khan and he volleyed the ball in to the net, although the angle was bit acute still it beat Sangram Mukherjee. (1-1).

In the lemon break all the Bagan fans might hope for a big margin victory against the bottom liner as their team strength is one of the best in the country. But in the 67th minute everyone in the stadium get shocked when in a counter attack Amos’s low centre from the right flank find Junior and he didn’t make any mistake to dip home (1-2). It was all over for Bagan.

The Mariners did everything at the Sporting end in the last twenty minutes except the goal.

Sporting remain rock bottom but their first win of the campaign will give them much needed confidence for the rest of the season while Bagan’s dream of I-League seems to be moving away as they are now seven points behind from the fore runner Dempo. Dempo won the goan derby by 4-2 against Churchill Brothers today.

Mohun Bagan: Sangram Mukherjee, NS Manju, Deepak Mondal, Rakesh Masih (Branco Cardozo, 85th), Surkumar Singh, Snehasish Chakraborty, Ryuji Sueoka, Marcos Perreira, Ishfaq Ahmed (James Singh, 46th), Edeh Chidi, Jose Ramirez Barreto.

Sporting Clube de Goa: Felix D’Souza, Chandrasekhar Chinta, Kengi Arai, Felip Gomes, Joseph Perreira, A. Khan, Nicholas Rodrigues (Bisheshwor Singh, 56th), Bibiano Fernandes, Rovan Perreira, Junior Elijah (Elvino Fernandes, 90th), Nathaniel Amos.

Referee: PK Bose.

MoM: Kengi Arai.

 Picture Courtesy: Bartaman

 

2 points in last 2 matches is really pushing out Mohun Bagan little far from the run of championship in the ONGC I-League this year. In the last two matches where they expected maximum points against team like Pune FC and JCT, actually they have managed to draw only in the both matches with score line remain same 0-0.

But Mariners’ livewire Brazilian Jose Barreto is still very much hopeful about their run for championship in the tournament. Even though he missed the penalty in the JCT match at Ludhiana, still he thinks that is not the end, a long way to go. Against Sporting Clube de Goa Mohun Bagan will play their next match at home turf. And as many as seven players of Mariners are already shown yellow card in earlier matches. The players are- Sangram, Shilton, Barreto, Marcos, Deepak, Azim, Masih, so coach Satyajit Chatterjee cautioned all those players to play cautiously, so that they must not miss the next match on 27^th of March i.e. against Fed Cup runners Shillong Lajong. Isfaq Ahmed will be missed the match due to double booking. Moreover these two matches will be played at Kolkata and Mariners must get full points from these two matches otherwise their dream of hope of I –League may fall in to river Ganga. Coach Satyajit or veteran Barreto as well as the team believe the league is still open very much so no more point loss, only to go forward with full advantage. Eventually Mariners got the golden chance to go at least at the second spot of the table after Mahindra’s draw and Dempo’s loss in the last round but Mariners could not take the opportunity to go ahead.

Mohun Bagan-SCG match will be played at Yuba Bharati Krirangan from 4.30pm on Saturday, 20^th of March.

 

Penalty miss by Barreto and a lot of missed chances cost Mariners 2 vital points in ONGC I League against JCT at round 16. Mohun Bagan still on the 4th spot of the table. They are in 25 points from 16 matches. Mohun Bagan had a good chance to go up of the table. Specially after draw of Mahindra against KEB and loss of Dempo aginst Salgaokar, Bagan was eyeing the top spot. They could manage up to go the third spot by winning against JCT. But lot of missed chances by the Bagan players could not help them to earn three vital away points.

Team:

Mohun Bagan- Sangram, Surkumar, Dipak, Masih, Manju, Sueoka, Marcos, Ishaq, Snehasis (James), Barreto, Chiddi