Chief coach Karim Bencharifa exclaimed that referring is marring Mohun Bagan’s opportunity of winning the iLeague for the season. If the referring standard of today’s match is considered, one will have to sincerely accept his concerns. In this match referring is absurd and an authentic comedy leaving a lot to be desired. One wonders if there is any intension of AIFF to conduct some courses for match officials. Otherwise AFC could step in and intervene before the game of football is snatched away by out of the ground adjustments.
It is not easy to prove if some referees are compromised to benefit some teams but the way the game is handled lives little doubts. One can cite example of the soccer match between JCT and Mohun Bagan that have been poorly officiated to benefit the others. It is unfair to fans who sacrifice their money and efforts to support their teams but only to get frustrated by the irregularities normal committed by a referee whose intentions are questionable. The same referee’s poor decisions made Lebanon move out of Nehru Cup this year. Lebanon lodged official complain against him to AIFF.
Very few cases have called the attention of the federation in as far as disciplinary measures are concerned, with most going unnoticed or to be more realistic, ignored. Poor referring can be a result of lack of skills. Refresher courses need to be frequently taken to capacitate them. They need to read more about the subject of referring to update themselves.
In today’s match if Deepak’s marching order was comic, depriving Suraj of a penalty was a serious offense.
Both Mohun Bagan and JCT tried their best to score. It was JCT who scored two goals in 46th and 56th minute respectively. Bagan defense sloppy shows were costly in both the occasions. Branco reduced the margin, but then Suraj was deprived of a penalty when he was pulled down. One can recall that Shilton was booked when he broke his leg.
Deepak got a marching order today while a Video footage will confirm that he wasn’t to be blamed for the incident. With Manju and Vasan out, Bagan will definitely have trouble in fielding a stopper beside Masih in the next match.
After a barren first half, JCT took the advantage of complacency and sluggishness of our defense and scored their first goal immediately after lemon break. Time and again the left back position have been exposed as a weak link and oppositions have successfully utilized it. JCT’s second goal was also a defensive lapse as the defenders allowed opposition’s free movement in penetrative zone. Till then no one knew that worst was still to come for Mohun Bagan. Left back, MohanRaj got injured and was taken to the hospital. Right back, Zenith, was also injured in an aerial challenge. However, he came back after treatment. In the meantime Branco reduced the margin with a powerful shot from the edge of the penalty box. As MohunBagan went all out for equalizer, the referee played his part. First he deprived Suraj of a penalty, which was unthinkable. Then he picked his next victim, Deepak. Deepak’s offence was simple. He cleared a ball with a superb sliding tackle. It was a real comic one. Thousands of fans and supporters, who were present either in stadium or in front of TV screens, could not imagine such a blunder.
Our coach and officials would sure have a tough time to pick first eleven for the next match as Barreto and MohanRaj are in injury list, Deepak, and Branco are unavailable due to card and players like Manju, Habibur, Sk.Azim etc are not yet fit.
Teams:
JCT: Karanjeet Singh , Jaspal Singh ,Sunil Kumar, Baljeet Singh Saini ( Pawan Kumar 88′),Jagpreet Singh, Daljeet Singh, Penn Orji , Daljeet Singh, Gurwinder Singh , Shakatar Singh (Jaswinder Singh 74′), Baldeep Singh Jr.
Mohun Bagan: Shilton Paul , Deepak Mondol , Zenith, Rakesh Masih, N. Mohonraj (Subho Kumar 69′), Mickey Fernandez (Suraj Mondol 58′),Marcos Pereira, Isfaq Ahmed (Snehasish Chakrabarty ), James Singh , Chidi Eden , Branco Cordozo.