Bagan won by 5-1 against ONGC in their opening match in Durand Cup. It is one of Chief Coach Karim Bencharifa’s favourite mantras: if you lose, it’s how you react that counts. What happened at IFA Shield final last week must have made Kareem and his boys’ teeth hurt, but it is difficult to imagine how Mohun Bagan’s response could have been more satisfying. Chiddi Edeh, who missed the IFA Shield final, soothed his nerves with two confidence-building goals. Ditto Surkumar Singh. Barreto’s goal made this Bagan’s biggest win of the season.

 The most gratifying part for Kareem, however, was that the two players who were missed in the Shield final scored – though, Barreto missed a penalty.Chiddi had been desperately looking for the goals right from the word GO. Surkumar, too, should feel a lot better after hooking in two goals that had Bagan’s supporters loudly singing his name rather than arguing among themselves about whether he is a right back or a forward!  When Barreto played with Chiddi to fire in Bagan’s third goal it was only the first time Chiddi had set Barreto up to score since they became team-mates. Barreto, in turn, has created only one for Chiddi. How this partnership is going to develop over the next few months, Kareem is acutely aware, will be pivotal to Bagan’s aspirations of keeping the Federation Cup and winning the i-League trophy. Mohun Bagan, now need just a draw against JCT in their next match on Friday to make it to the semi-final.

Surkumar Singh (9’  and 90+2) and Nigerian Chidi Edeh (16th and 77th) scored two goal each while Jose Barretto (43rd) scored once for Mohun Bagan, Babatunde socred the solitory goal for ONGC in the 82nd minuteof the match.




Surkumar Singh played at times was becoming a  libero in the first half of the match, instead of his usual right back position. That was the successful experiement of Coach Bencherifa.























The member of the National squad played an outstanding game in the first half to take the full control of the match, though in second half he has played in his normal right back position. 
































Surkumar scored the first goal for Mohun Bagan. Seven minutes later, ONGC made a mistake for holding the ball inside their box for too long as Chiddi made no mistake to score his first of the match and 2nd for his team. On 43rd minutes before the lemon break, in his first mach Barretto scored by a right footer of  a deflection from ONGC defender CS Saleel.
Chidi scored his double as he turned in a low right footer past the ONGC goalkeeper in the 77th minute, Surkumar completed the scorline 5-1 by firing in a 35-yard long ranger in the injury time.

Teams:
Mohun Bagan AC
1-Sangram Mukherjee, 13-Irungbam Surkumar Singh, 4-Deepak Kumar Mondal [C], 20-Rakesh Masih, 27-Nallappan Mohanraj, 16-James Lukram Singh (72′ 32-Subhajit Majumdar), 26-Micky Fernandes, 17-Kalia Perumal Kulothungan (84′ 8-Subho Kumar), 25-Snehashis Chakraborty (65′ 7-Santha Kumar), 10-Jose Marcio Ramirez Barreto, 9-Chidi Edeh

Unused Substitutes
31-Shilton Pal, 19-Mashangva Genius Zenith, 12-Branco Vincent Cardozo, 34-Sangram Mandi

ONGC, Mumbai
30-Bilifang Narzary [C], 22-K.V. Lalu, 6-Udofia Chiukwama, 3-Kamal Thapa, 16-Shahbaz Shaleel, 18-L. Lalmuanpuia (60′ 17-Phool Chand Hembram), 11-Sandip Sanga, 14-Kaushik Bose, 28-A.Naresh, 10-Badmus Baba Thunde, 12-Jonathan Lalsangzuala (72′ 27-Kenistan C.)

Unused Substitutes
1-Prasanjit Ghosh, 5-Gour Naskar, 25-Dharmesh Patel, 8-Somy P.T, 19-M.C. Dhanesh

Referee: A. Rowan (Services)

 

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