Stanley Rozario

Calcutta: Mohun Bagan coach Stanley Rozario on Monday resigned from his post in the “greater interests of the club and the team”.

Rozario handed over his resignation to the club brass in Margao, where Mohun Bagan sunk to their second consecutive loss in the I-League on Sunday, but his resignation hasn’t been accepted. He may be asked to continue till their next match at home against Dempo on Thursday. The Mohun Bagan core committee, which will meet in the city on Tuesday, will decide on the next cou-rse of action.

According to sources, Phillippe de Ridder, who is expected to be in the city later this week, could be the man in charge. Also, doing the rounds are the names of Subrata Bhattacharjee and Subhas Bhowmick. However, both Subrata and Subhas don’t possess the mandatory A licence, and hence will be offered the technical director’s post. If that happens, Bagan may bring in Birbal Singh of Manipur or Jahar Das as the coach.

Mohun Bagan’s loss to Churchill Brothers on Sunday had put Rozario under immense pressure. The presence of the Bagan brass in Margao also made things difficult for him. Rozario’s patchy tactics has often backfired for the team this season.

“Since Mohun Bagan is a formidable club and top contenders in Indian football, I want the team to bounce back and bring back the winning attitude,” Rozario wrote in his resignation letter.

“So at this point of time in the greater interests of the club and the team, I will like to step down from my job as chief coach.” Rozario defended himself, arguing that under him Mohun Bagan had done reasonably well, finishing runners-up in the Federation Cup, the Calcutta Football League and Platinum Jubilee Cup. He said that his side struggled because of injury to key players.

“Key players like Diamondstar of Asian origin and Edeh Chidi have been battling injuries. Apart from them Sheikh Azim, Ishfaq Ahmed, Sagram Mukherjee, Kinshuk Debnath and Satish Kumar were also unavailable due to injuries and sickness for many days which affected the team’s performance,” Rozario wrote.

“With these injury problems we started the I-League, still the team played well against Pune FC in Pune and drew the match 1-1 after unfortunately squandering chances… The team conceded a goal in the 82nd minute because of a defensive lapse.

“Losing to HAL, Bangalore was a disaster and a great disappointment for all of us. Still we started well in the away game against the strong Churchill Brothers...,” Rozario explained.