Letter of Mohun Bagan to IFA regarding turf at Salt Lake Stadium

Mohun Bagan AC’s letter to IFA. After their second match of IFA Shield Mohun Bagan is suffering from huge injury problem. Today’s new inclusions are Jose Barreto, Harpreet Singh. Along with others who are already missing the matches. The letter is given hereunder.

Dear Sir,

We regret to inform you that the artificial turf laid at YBK Stadium is causing lot of injury problems to the players. We have noticed that since the artificial turf was laid, players are getting niggling injuries.

We are not getting any home team advantage either. Our vital players, Jose Marcio Barreto Ramires and Harpreet Singh sustained serious injuries during the IFA Shield match played today against Techno Aryan. We had a talk with all our players and they are just not comfortable with the turf and they feel that it is detrimental to football.

We are aware that a huge sum of money has been invested in laying of this artificial turf but if we continue to ignore the problems caused by the turf, it will be harmful for all of us in the long run. We request you to please contact the Sports Department, Government of West Bengal and also obtain expert opinion from AFC and FIFA about this turf and to sort out this problem. Till such time, we urge you not to schedule any competitive football match at the YBK Stadium.

Your support and cooperation for the cause of Football is eagerly solicited.

Thanking you,

Yours faithfully, Anjan Kumar Mitra

Managing Director

United Mohun Bagan Football Team Pvt. Ltd.

 

Mohun Bagan earns full points against Aryans

Despite rough and nasty challenges by the opponents through out the match, Ashim scored and the team maintained the lead as the Mariners earned full points against Aryans Club in IFA Shield encounter.

First of all, kudos to our technical director and the coach for being able to plug and pick eleven pair of legs for the much important encounter against Aryan Club when the long list of injury has been haunting in the squad. The list is ever increasing after each outing and even after each training session. Despite all odds, we must give full credit to these gentlemen, who could put forward a game plan in place realizing the limitation of our squad and the plan worked as the Mariners earned full points from this match.

This is an opponent who took away full 3 points from us in this year’s CFL encounter. Each member of the squad was aware of this fact. Revenge was due. However, the options for the Mariners were limited as majority of the key squad members are either in the list of injury or are unavailable due to national duty. Bagan started in a cautious note and slowly started building up the momentum with couple of early movements. As the game progressed, Mohun Bagan changed the gear when Asim’s side volley was narrowly saved by the opposition goalkeeper and Sukumar-Barreto-Chiddi combination came close to scoring. Mohun Bagan received a sudden blow when the coach had to bring in Harpreet in place of Barreto, who was limping and visibly in pain. However, immediately after the substitution the supporters had a sigh of relief as Asim scored from a well directed cross from Gaurango (1-0). Mariners went into lemon break leading by a sole goal.
 
The game became rough and physical as the opponent became desperate for equalizer. In the process, Harpreet was injured and had to be substituted with Rahul Kumar. The match official had a blind eye when Chiddi and Ishfaq were tripped intentionally inside the penalty box and in both the occasions the Mariners were deprived of genuine penalty. On the contrary, Kingsuk Debnath was shown yellow card for trivial offence. When the match official finally blew the final whistle, although the scoreline remained 1-0 in favour of the Mariners; it was not so happy moment for our club as the big names like Barreto have already registered their names in the injury list.
 
Mariners’ think tanks need to spend more mid-night oil in order to come up with a strategy for the next match when the majority of the squad would be waiting in the queue outside doctors’ chamber.

Team:

Mohun Bagan: Sangram, Surkumar, Dipak, Kingshuk, Biswajit, Gouranga, Jayanta, Barreto (Harpreet) (Rahul) (Dipundu), Ishfaq, Ashim, Chidi.

Mohun Bagan 1 : 1 Lajong FC

In spite of taking early lead, Mohun Bagan settles for a draw in the opening encounter of IFA Shield campaign against Lajong FC. Ashim Biswas finds the net for the Mariners while Zenith equalized for Lajong FC. With a long list of injury, it was a tough time for the Mohun Bagan officials to choose the first XI. Except Deepak Mondal and Chidi, no other
first team players were available for the service in the starting line up in the opening encounter of a tournament like IFA Shield, with which Mohun Bagan have been sharing a deep rooted legacy and prestige for last 100 years !! It is shocking but nevertheless true.

With Chidi and Ashim in the forward line, Mohun Bagan started off cautiously in 4-4-2 formation realizing the limitation of the team as well as the adverse weather situation. It looked like a dead rubber as none of the teams could take the control in the mid-field. Couple of solo initiatives at times by Chidi, Ashim or Snehasis were not good enough to bother the Lajong defense. Mariners finally broke the jinx in 32nd minute of the match when Ashim’s header from Satish’s floater from the corner flag finds the net (1-0).  However, the joy was short lived for the Mariners as Lajong took the initiative immediately and started putting pressure on the opponents. Ishfaq and Barreto came as the substitutes in the second half but failed make any major impact. On the other hand, it was Zenith of Lajong FC took an amazing free kick on 67th minute to stun the Mariners (1-1).
Undoubtedly injury and weather can be major factors for such a mediocre performance for the Mariners. However, the squad and the think tanks must realize that the time is running out thick and fast before they could put some good performance so that millions of supporters could regain their hope to add any more feather in the trophy room

Team:

Mohun Bagan: Sangram, Nazimuddin, Dipak, Kingshuk, Dhanrajan, Gouranga, Jayanta, Dipendu (Biswajit), Satish (Ishfaq), Chidi, Ashim (Barreto).