Kolkata giant Mohun Bagan will appear in Durand Cup after a gap of two years as the qualifiers for the more-than-a-century-old football tournament starting from September 2 at the Ambedkar Stadium. The main round of the tournament, which starts from September 11, will see participation of nine I-League sides. Besides Mohun Bagan, East Bengal and Dempo, Churchill Brothers, Sporting Clube-De-Goa, Mahindra United, JCT, Air India and Shillong Lajong. Army XI is the tenth team directly seeded into the quarter-final round. The 122nd edition of the tournament, the third oldest in the world and oldest in Asia, will be conducted in two stages — qualifying knock out and quarterfinal league rounds.

Meanwhile Mohun Bagan team arrived Delhi by Rajdhani Express on Monday morning. Barreto and Chiddi will play together for the very first time. The striking force was the main concern for Mariners in IFA Shield. So it will be a big boost when the two foreigner will play together for Bagan. Branco is also in the team. Sk Azim & Isfaq Ahmed will miss the tournament due to their injury.  

Bagan is in the group B of the tournament along with JCT and ONGC. Bagan will meet ONGC in their first match on 16th September. JCT already defeated ONGC and got two valuable points. So the matches of Bagan against both the teams are crucial to reach to the Semi-Final.

 

Mohun Bagan wins against Chirag United 5-4 in tie-breakers and moves into the finals of 114th IFA Shield. Mohun Bagan will now face Churchill Brothers.

Mariners showed nerves of steel even after being reduced to 10 men from the ninth minute onwards to edge out Chirag United SC 5-4 in penalty shootout and set up a summit clash against Churchill Brothers in the 114th IFA Shield, on Wednesday. Mohun Bagan was reduced to 10 men after Chiddi Edeh got a marching order.Bagan players were not happy with the referee’s decision. 

The newly-laid artificial turf at Yuba Bharati Krirangan in Salt Lake saw the second semifinal being decided through tie-breaker as both the sides failed to score in regulation period and extra time.
Substitute keeper Sangram Mukherjee gave Mohun Bagan a flying start in the tie-breaker by saving Jayanta Sen’s shot from the spot.

All the five Mohun Bagan penalty takers — Marcos Pereira, Rakesh Masih, Snehashis Chakraborty, Surkumar Singh and James Singh — then found the target to send the Green-and-Maroons to the final.

Earlier, Mohun Bagan’s starting goalkeeper Shilton Paul did all the hard work thwarting all Chirag efforts for 120 minutes but Sangram emerged the hero with his anticipation diving to the right to deny Jayanta in the penalty shootout. Dipak Mondal was another player for mariners who was too brilliant at his performance.

Jayanta’s miss proved costly for Chirag United though PC Lalawmpuia, Edu, Lal Kamal Bhowmick and Subhashish Roy Chowdhury found the net from the spot.

 But in the final there will only one foreigner for mariners as Chiddi will not be able to play for showing red card in today’s match. This is the most concerned area for the coach Kareem Bencherifa as Chiddi was the only positive striker remains in the squad after injury of Suraj Mondal.

Teams:

Mohun Bagan : Shilton(Sangram 120'), Surkumar , Masih, Dipak , Mohanraj(Biswajit 106'), James (Santa Kumar), Marcos , Micky , Kulothungam, Chiddi, Snehasis

Chirag United : Sandip, Safar, Dulal (Subhasish Roy Chowdhury), Manas, Du, Gourangs Biswas, Lalkamal, Jayanta, Parveen (Lalampuia 92') , Parminder
                         (Benckok), Joshimar.

  Picture: Ganashakti

 

The group C 114th IFA Shield match between Mohun Bagan and Mahindra United ends in a draw. Both the teams have earned a point each and finished with 4 points. But Bagan has the goal advantage (+2) and hence moves into the semifinal. They will meet Chirag on 9th September.

Snehasish scored for Bagan in the first half. That was gem of a goal. Marcos gave a pass to James in the right flank – James was near the corner flag. He got hold of the ball, and then a brilliant left footer found Snehasish near the far post. His header was too strong for Subhasish Roy Choudhury who tried to fist the ball out. But the ball was found kissing the net from inside. Required to win the match by at least a three-goal margin for their progress into the semis, Mahindra United was forced onto the backfoot in the face of a concerted Mohun Bagan attack.Subhasish raised up for quite a number of times and stopped Bagan from scoring another goal.

 If Subhasish was the saviour for Mahindra, Shilton was there for Bagan. In number of occasions he showed his abilities and foiled Mahindra attacks, except for once. At the beginning of the second half Mahindra scored when Mijin got hold of the ball and made no mistake. The ball went past Deepak in the 2nd post. 

Both the teams tested the defense of the opponents. But in the second half Chiddi was the lone Bagan player in the attacking third. Hence Mahindra defense had no problems in covering him. However, referring was not up to the mark at all.

Bagan will now meet Chirag United on 9th September in the 2nd semi finals at Yuva Bharati Krirangan, on 8th I-League Champion Churchill Brothers will meet Air India in the first semi finals.

TEAMS

M.Mohun Bagan : Shilton Paul, Dipak Mondol, Rakesh Masih, N.Mohonraj, Surkumar Singh, Marcos Pereira, Kalia Kulothungon, Mickey Fernandez, Snehasish Chakrabarty (Santa Kumar), L.James Singh (Sangram Mandi), Chidi Edeh.

Mahindra United : Subhasish Roy Chowdhury, Denzil Franco, D.Ravanan, Kali Alaudden, Susant Mathew, Debabrata Roy, K.Thoi singh, Md. Rafi, Aseem Kutty, Muritala Ali(Sushil Singh), Suetogar Mijin (N.P.Pradeep)

Yellow Cards : Micky Fernandez, Marcos Pereira and Deepak Mondal (Mohun Bagan) and S.Muritala Ali (Mahindra United).

Referee : A. Arjunan (Services)