Calcutta: Mohun Bagan failed to score a goal past a 10-man Mohammedan Sporting, at the Barasat Stadium, on Sunday. But that alone shouldn't give their coach Sanjay Sen a bad headache.
It was just the first competitive match of the season for the I-League champions, and if they were a bit rusty, that was understandable.
The marquee CFL Premier Division match, which was also the openers for the both the team, ended in a barren draw. It is very early in the season and there's still a lot of time for Bagan to sort things out and fine-tune the team.
Such matches often serve as learning curves and it will only be problematic if the experience is not put to good use. Call it coincidental, but Bagan, over the last few years, haven't been off to very inspiring starts in a new season.
Coach Sen will have to iron out a few flaws in his boys, the first being their habit of squandering sitters. Of course, the team will get stronger once the likes of Dudu Omagbemi and Sony Norde come in, but the youngsters need to make sure they learn and do so quickly.
There were definitely some positives as well for Bagan, one of them being Lalkamal Bhowmick. In Sunday's playing XI for Bagan, only Katsumi Yusa, Pritam Kotal, Souvik Chakrabarti and goalkeeper Debjit Majumder were the I-League regulars.
The team need some able, experienced guidance and Lalkamal stepped in, taking good control of the midfield.
On the other hand, a lot of credit goes to Mohammedan Sporting for the way they fought their numerical disadvantage and forced their illustrious opponents to share points. It was four minutes after the half-hour mark when their captain, Kareem Omlaja Nurain, was sent off for a dangerous foul on the goal-bound Ram Malik.
Thanks to Nurain's irresponsible act, his team had to play with 10 players for the remainder of the match.
However, the Mohammedan Sporting players never looked baffled. They could have even gone on to take a lead towards the end of the first session had striker Nurudeen Olawale's left-footer, which Debjit deflected past the post, had a little more power in it.
Kareem's ouster left them with a fullback short, but young Bikramjit Singh and Deepak Singh combined quite well to avert danger, keeping Bagan at bay. Dolphine Bernard, coming in as a substitute, showed some much-needed urgency.
Bagan had pinned hopes on young Kean Lewis, who has come all the way from the US to ply his trade in India. Substitute Pankaj Moula set him up with a wonderful through, but despite having only the rival custodian to beat, the unmarked Lewis shot a grounder way off the near post.
Towards the fag end of the match, Pankaj tapped a Katsumi free-kick, but goalkeeper Ishan Debnath did brilliantly to parry it over the horizontal.
Mohun Bagan: Debjit Majumder; Sukhen Dey, Pratik Chaudhuri, Safar Sardar, Pritam Kotal; Souvik Chakrabarti, Lalkamal Bhowmick, Tirthankar Sarkar (Kean Lewis, 50), Ram Malik (Ujjal Howladar, 84); Katsumi Yusa; Raja Das (Pankaj Moula, 70)
Md. Sporting: Ishan Debnath; Deepak Singh, Bikramjit Singh, Kareem Omlaja Nurain, Mumtaz Akhtar; Rana Gharami; M. Basanta Singh (Monirul Mondal, 83), Bijoy Mandi (Dolphine Bernard, 43), Dipankar Das, Tanmoy Ghosh; Nurudeen Olawale (Kamran Farooque)
Referee: Ajit Dutta
MoM: Lalkamal Bhowmick
