ATK captain Luis Garcia with manager Antonio Lopez Habas and co-owner Sanjiv Goenka, on arrival at the city airport, on Sunday. A Telegraph picture

Calcutta: The morning after he scored the goal that sealed the inaugural ISL title for Atletico de Kolkata, was, without doubt, a special one for Mohammed Rafique.

But given his humility, Rafique prefers to keep his feet on the ground instead of going overboard with the stellar show that made him a star for ATK within a few minutes. Perhaps, his humble background — being the son of a jute mill worker — has something to do with Rafique being nonchalant with his performance on the day that mattered.

At present, what’s important to him is putting up an impressive show in East Bengal colours. In other words, his focus has shifted completely towards the red-and-gold brigade.

“Yes, after you put in such a performance, the next morning always turns out to be something special… Had a different kind of feeling, to be honest… But at the moment, I’m back to where I belong and the concentration is back on East Bengal,” Rafique told The Telegraph on his return from Mumbai on Sunday evening.

“ISL is history and East Bengal are my priority now. Half of the season still remains and my goal is to impress in every game I turn out for East Bengal. We have the two big events coming up — Federation Cup and I-League. And my job is to put in my best so that East Bengal finish on top in both of them.”

The experience he gathered at the ISL even though he didn’t play all the ATK matches should help him in putting up a better show for Armando Colaco’s side, Rafique believes. “Obviously, the experience was wonderful. Every match that I played was a learning experience.

“Scoring in a final is a dream for everyone… Am glad that I could do that … Just want to keep the good work going…” the 22-year-old said.

Rafique also thanked Jose Ramirez Barreto for having backed him throughout. “It goes without saying that with Barreto, the local guys such as Arnab (Mondal), Kingshuk (Debnath), Biswajit (Saha), Baljit (Singh Sahni) and myself were always comfortable.

“He has been playing in Calcutta since long and knows a lot about us. He always urges us to strive and excel, which acts as a major boost,” Rafique emphasised.

Here’s what Barreto, one of the assistant coaches of ATK, had to say about Rafique. “Knowing his capabilities, I urged the (ATK) management to pick him from the players’ draft. That he didn’t get to play too many matches in the ISL was because of his absence during the pre-season we had in Spain.

“Look, I have a better idea of the local players than Antonio (Lopez Habas) has since I have been here for the last 15 years or so. I knew that Rafique has it in him to come in with something special when the situation demanded it… You saw what happened yesterday…

“The goal he scored (in the final) only reflects that he has a calm head over his shoulders. He had a rival player pretty close to him; yet, he evaded the latter calmly to head the ball home.”