Tolgay Özbey has joined Mohun Bagan. In a Press Conference today the Club president , Swapan Sadhan Bose handed over the Mohun Bagan jersey to Tolgay Özbey. His jersey number will be 10.

Mohun Bagan will play a friendly game against Nepal Police on 12th May at the Dashrath Stadium, Kathmandu. The match is being organised by Anfa in partnership with United Spirits Pvt Ltd, the authorised distributor of the brand in Nepal, in a bid to popularize football in Nepal. The tickets for the box-office match have been priced at Rs 250 and Rs 500 and will be played under the floodlights at 6pm local time. Though there are political tensions in Nepal, the weather is in favour of a good football. Bagan team is undergoing a practice session this afternoon as we write this article. People have gathered to have a look into Sunil Chettry’s practice.

The relegation of Blackburn Rovers (which was confirmed yesterday) has clearly indicated how bad management can destroy a good football team. Blackburn, who are one of only 4 clubs to have won the English Premier League (Manchester City might become a fifth this year), will now battle it out in the second tier next season, whereas Venky’s were talking of a “Champions League” place when they took over!

When Sam Allardyce was sacked in December 2010, Blackburn had one of the most well-organised defences in the league, with international players like Michel Salgado (ESP), Chris Samba (CGO), Ryan Nelsen (NZL), Gael Givet (FRA) and Martin Olsson (SWE), augmented by the exciting young Phil Jones and Grant Hanley, and backed by Paul Robinson in goal. Within months Allardyce’s successor Steve Kean managed to convert that defence to one of the league’s weakest. Salgado, Samba, Nelsen and Jones were all allowed to leave, for one reason or another, to be replaced by players like Scott Dann and Bradley Orr, who were not really premier league material. Paucity of funds provided by Venky’s was one prime reason for this, but the real reason was lack of vision.

Week after week Steve Kean, fully backed for some strange reasons by Venky’s, put out teams including near veterans who were rejected by other top clubs. (Bradley Orr, for instance, was rejected by QPR after they gained promotion – so how did he fit into Blackburn’s "Champion League" ambitions????) Kean’s team sheets also included a few untested youngsters, who understandably floundered in the highly competitive Premier League. Does this not remind us of one club closer home, where near veterans, rejected by other top division clubs, and some untested youngsters find places in the squad?

For Blackburn, the whole exercise was a disaster. A team that was supposed to fight for European places has now been relegated. One hopes that the Mohun Bagan team management learn some lessons from Blackburn’s disaster. What are these lessons, one might ask. Here are my two bits:

1. Some men are not fit to coach top flight teams while some others are. If Allardyce was retained, Blackburn might not have qualified for Europe, for you need a pool of top players to do that, but it is unlikely that they would have been relegated. (Allardyce in fact is doing very well with West Ham and might guide them back into the Premier League next season.) So it is important to identify a proper coach who is capable of handling top flight pressures and stick with him for a reasonable period of time. Subrata Bhattacharjee and Prashanta Banerjee have done a fair job in 2011-12, and they should be given a good run next season too. A new coaching team may not settle down before mid-season, and then it might be too late.

2. A mixture of youth and experience is essential for any team to be successful in a team sport. For the experienced players, fitness has to be the bottom line, while for the youngsters, talent has to be the bottom line. There is no point in filling the team with talented veterans and near veterans like Barreto, Pradip, Bungo, Chhetri, etc., if they are not fit. Similarly there is no point in filling the team with fit youngsters like Masih, Mohun Raj, Jagtar etc., if they are not talented.

3. The club administration must not meddle directly into football matters like team building, playing strategy and tactics etc., and leave all that to the experts. The job of the administration is to see that the players and the coaching staff are all comfortable and the facilities are in place so that the playing staff can perform at their best week in and week out. Venky’s meddling with team issues led to their clash with Allardyce, who, as an old school football manager, simply refused to listen to his bosses regarding team building and strategy, and was subsequently removed. The outcome is apparent.

Of course, Blackburn were unfortunate that they did not have the magic of Mohun Bagan, the magic that has drawn millions of us to this veritable temple of ours, where our collective prayers and/or will-power has so far prevented (and hopefully will keep on preventing) the ultimate disaster of relegation. However, for an institution like Mohun Bagan, not being the very top football club in the country for ten years is a disaster in itself.