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Calcutta: The days of agony are over, finally. Hoping against hope and the painful wait for the ifs and buts to happen will now longer haunt the club and the millions of supporters suffering the same with it.
On Wednesday, in their final match of the ninth National Football League (NFL) for the ONGC Cup, Mohun Bagan rose to the occasion, holding Churchill Brothers 1-1 and survived the threat of relegation thanks to a better goal differential.
Roberto Mendes de Silva Beto put the three-time champions ahead in the 19th minute with a brilliantly-executed goal. The Goan visitors managed to equalise, 14 minutes from time, when Marcos Parreira found the net, beating the off-side trap from the rival defence.
The match ended without yielding any winners, but Mohun Bagan returned more than so, since the draw was good enough for them to stay on in the top flight of the premier club competition.
Both Mohun Bagan and Churchill finished the league with 23 points (off 22 outings), but the hosts’ 16-19 goal differential did the trick, pushing Churchill (having had a goal differential of 23-33) to the shame of relegation.
Part of Mohun Bagan’s survival should owe to the veteran coach Amal Dutta, who inspired the team’s fightback when he took over from Subrata Bhattacharya with nine matches to go. The team was languishing at 15 points from 13 matches at that time.
Against Churchill, Mohun Bagan showed their intention right from the word go. In the third minute, Man-of-the-Match Mehtab Hussain exceedingly loped up and took a shot from distance, which failed to penetrate a crowd of players. The ball went to Beto on the right, whose attempted centre took a deflection off Churchill right-back Venacio Gonsalves and hit the post. Sunil Chhetri pounced on the rebound, only to see Satish Bharti clearing the ball from goalline.
It was a warning Churchill didn’t seem to have heeded to and Beto’s brilliance shook them in the 19th minute. Set up nicely by Mehrajuddin Wadao, the Brazilian brushed aside Chitrasen Singh’s challenge with utter ease in the first touch and with the next, came a thunderous right-footer, giving the goalkeeper Marc Mascarenhas no chance.
Three minutes later, there was a repetition of Mohun Bagan’s first attacking move, this time Sunil slotting home, only from an off-side position.
Mohun Bagan clearly held their sway over the rivals in every department of the game, reducing Churchill attempts to long-rangers. The foreign duo ? Ajibade Babalade and Eduardo Coelho ? also mark-ed Churchill attackers Yusif Yakubu and Marcos distinctively well.
Dutta tried to be a bit defensive, replacing Sunil with Basudeb Mondal in the second-half and Mohun Bagan’s scare of conceding a goal towards the end popped up again. Marcos nicely followed the ball from behind even if the Bagan backline went up to lay the off-side trap. Although Eduardo & Co. remonstrated against the goal, the Malaysian assistant referee did the right thing, by sticking to his decision.
As Churchill went for the elusive winner, Beto and Basudeb missed sitters on counter-moves. But all’s well that ends well as far as Mohun Bagan’s case is concerned.
Teams
Mohun Bagan: Subrata Pal; Dulal Biswas, Ajibade Babalade, Eduardo Coelho, Rishi Kapoor; Tomba Singh, Mehrajuddin Wadao, Noel Wilson (Basudeb Mondal 70), Mehtab Hussain, Roberto Mendes de Silva Beto, Sunil Chhetri (Dharamjit Singh 46).
Churchill Brothers: Marc Mascarenhas; Venacio Gonsalves, Satish Bharti, Osumanu Husseini, Sanjay Parte, Harinder Singh, Sujoy Dutta (Vanlal Rova 46), Chitrasen Singh (Ryan D’Souza 76), Ratan Singh (Lolendra Singh 57), Yusif Yakubu, Marcos Parreira.
Referee: Ravi Chandran (Malaysia).