TENTATIVE SCHEDULE FOR I-LEAGUE

The All India Football Federation has declared the tentative fixtures for this year’s I-League. The schedule for Mohun Bagan is as follows:

Saturday 6th October – Shillong Lajong vs Mohun Bagan (Shillong)
Saturday 13th October – Mohun Bagan vs Prayag United (Kolkata)
Sunday 27th October – Mohun Bagan vs Sporting Clube de Goa (Kolkata)

 

 
Sunday 4th November – Air India vs  Mohun Bagan (Pune)
Saturday 10th November – ONGC vs  Mohun Bagan (New Delhi)
Saturday 17th November –  Mohun Bagan vs Salgaocar (Kolkata)
Sunday 25th November – Mumbai FC vs  Mohun Bagan (Pune)
Wednesday 28th November – Dempo vs  Mohun Bagan (Goa)
Sunday 2nd December – Pune FC vs  Mohun Bagan (Pune)
Sunday 9th December – Kingfisher East Bengal vs  Mohun Bagan (Kolkata) 
Saturday 15th December –  Mohun Bagan vs Pailan Arrows (Kolkata)
Sunday 23rd December –  Mohun Bagan vs United Sikkim (Kolkata)
Saturday 29th December – Churchill Brothers vs  Mohun Bagan (Goa)
Saturday 5th January –  Mohun Bagan vs Mumbai FC (Kolkata)
Thursday 10th January –  Mohun Bagan vs Dempo (Kolkata)
Sunday 13th January –  Mohun Bagan vs Pune FC (Kolkata)
Sunday 20th January – Salgaocar vs  Mohun Bagan (Goa)
Sunday 27th January – Prayag United vs  Mohun Bagan (Kolkata) 
Sunday 3rd February –  Mohun Bagan vs ONGC (Kolkata)
Saturday 9th February –  Mohun Bagan vs Kingfisher East Bengal (Kolkata)

From 10th February to 22nd March there will be a break in the I-League.

Saturday 23rd March – Pailan Arrows vs  Mohun Bagan (Kolkata)
Thursday 28th march –  Mohun Bagan vs Shillong Lajong (Kolkata)
Sunday 7th April – Sporting Clube de Goa vs  Mohun Bagan (Goa)
Saturday 13th April –  Mohun Bagan vs Air India (Kolkata)
Sunday 21st April –  Mohun Bagan vs Churchill Brothers (Kolkata)
Sunday 28th April – United Sikkim vs  Mohun Bagan (Gangtok)
 
 

Fed Cup team announced

The 20-member squad for Federation Cup will be –

Goal: Arindam Bhattacharya, Shilton Paul; Defence: Nirmal Chettri, Aiborlang Khongjee, Celestine Anyichie Echezona, Khelemba Meetei, Lalrozama Fanai, Warundeep Singh; Midfield: Manish Maithani, Manish Bharghav, Rakesh Masih, Biswajit Saha, Sk. Jewel Raja, Syed Rahim Nabi, Snehasish Chakraborty, Denson Devadas; Striker: Odafa Onyeke Okolie(C), Tolgay Ozbey, Sabeeth Sathyan, Anil Kumar.

Group B – Group of death and one of the most difficult group consisting of Mohun Bagan, Churchill Brothers, Air India and Md Sporting. The matches are to be played in Siliguri. The fixture is as below:

September 20: Air India VS Mohammedan SC (3.00 PM) 
September 20: Churchill Brothers VS Mohun Bagan (7.00 PM)
September 22: Mohammedan SC VS Churchill Brothers (3.00 PM)
September 22: Mohun Bagan VS Air India (7.00 PM) 
September 24: Mohun Bagan VS Mohammedan SC (7.00 PM) 
September 24: Air India VS Churchill Brothers(3.00 PM)

Mohun Bagan and Churchill are the front runners in the group however the other two teams can create upset and change equations in the group.

Mohun Bagan:

A lot has been discussed about our team in the group. Nothing new to say. In short the success depends on three players in three positions – Eche in defence, Denson in midfield and Odafa upfront. A lot on depend on these three players. besides Nabi/Jewel/Tolgay are the three pillars in the team.

Churchill Brothers : 

A new look team under Subhash Bhowmik. A strong team on paper but not tested and seriously devoid of any match practice. But we have to remember that they started their preseason camp earliest among all Indian teams.

The fulcrum of the team remains to be midfield general Beto and the success of the team will depend on him. Besides they have a good striker in Henry from Gabon who did quite well last year. Besides they have taken two players from Lebanon – Bilal the centre back and Akram, a striker. They have two good wing halfs in Binesh Balan and Stephen Dias. They also have two very capable midfielders in Tomba SIngh and Lenny (who did well in Nehru Cup). In defence they have Ravanan and Denzil Franco. The GK position will be managed by the experienced Sandip Nandy backed by young and talented Felix. Churchill have recruited two players from Pailan who did well. They are Gurtej Singh in defense and Bikramjit SIngh in midfield which gives good balance to the team. Overall a very balanced team.

We have a tough opponent to start with, however their defense looks a bit weaker specially Bilal is yet to be tested in Indian wet conditions.

Hope we can defeat Churchill and take a major step forward towards getting back the coveted trophy.

Md Sporting :

The team under Alok Mukherjee remains to be unpredictable as last few years. One day they may have a brilliant match and the next day they look a most ordinary side. They enjoyed few good wins in the season and also had a bad matches already. The forward line looks quite compact with Sunday, Alfred and Ashim. All the strikers are among goals which is a good sign. The midfield includes veteran Jayanta Sen as the main man. Alfred is also playing a bit behind to assist the midfield. The Korean, who doesn’t look superb, but is good with his free kicks. The wings will be managed by Gourango, Mukhter, Manirul and Krishanu Banerjee. The defence mainly consists of Mohun Bagan discards in Kingshuk, Azim, Dhanrajan. They have recruited a new foreigner in that position namely Daniel. There is little or no idea regarding this player at this moment. The GK will be managed by Somnath Khara and Arnab Sen Sharma. Overall a good team and can create some upset but not my candidate to qualify for the semis.

Air India :

The Durand winners under ex Indian captain, Godfrey Perriera will also be a tough opposition to play with. Recently they have recruited three ex Mohun Baganis in Souvik Chackroborty, Micky Fernandes and Branco (Anjan da will say Sourav Chack too… but Sourav as of now is a Mohun Bagan player). The three foreigners are Tomba in defence, Junior (ex Sporting/Prayag and Salgoacar – good player but injury prone) and Henry who did moderately well in last year I League along with Manandeep. I don’t know what happened to the Japanese midfielder who looked quite good last year. John Dias, the experienced centre back has also joined Air India this year.

Anyways to keep it simple we have the team to beat all these teams and qualify for the semi final… but no easy match in hand

 (From the desk of Souvik Goswami)

 

Mohun Bagan 6-0 WBP

Mohun Bagan thrash West Bengal Police 6-0. Nirmal Chettry was the first of the four different Mohun Bagan players who scored for Bagan today. Others whose names were there in the score card included Odafa (2), Sabeeth(2) and Tolgay.

Nirmal opened the account in the 5th minute when his header found the ball kissing the nets. Within 2 minutes his brilliant through found Odafa who bull dozed into WBP penalty area with two defenders trying to block him- and finish off in style (2-0).

Jewel Raja scored a goal before the half time – but his goal was cancelled as the referee felt he was offside.

In the second half Sabeeth scored two successive goals – first in the 50th minute and thenin the 64th minute. Odafa scored the 5th and Tolgay – who came as a replacement in the second half scored the sixth goal.

Bagan players missed 4 opportunities to score- Jewel, Nirmal, Tolgay and Manish Bhargav are to be blamed for the same.

Bagan will now meet Churchill Brothers on 20th September in Siliguri for the Federation Cup group league match. Other teams in the group include Air India and Mohammedan Sporting.