Mohun Bagan’s Lalawmpuiya after scoring one of his two goals against Peerless on Friday. A Telegraph picture

Calcutta: A three-goal victory in the first match of the season sounds good, but a lot was left to be desired when defending champions Mohun Bagan defeated Peerless in the Premier Division of the Sahara Calcutta Football League here on Friday.

Two goals in the first 12 minutes by Man-of-the-Match Lalawmpuiya, and one in the 84th minute by Branco Cardozo, saw the green-and-maroon brigade romp home in front of a packed stadium.

The Bagan supporters had a good time despite the shortcomings of their team and Lalawmpuiya’s goal in the first minute of the match set the mood for them. The spectators had barely settled down before Lalawmpuiya tapped in Peter Odafe’s free-kick. The swerving cross left the defenders and the goalkeeper rooted to their ground.

The second goal was scored from a brilliant move and the fate of the match was sealed with that strike.

The move started from the Bagan defence and after an array of precise passes, the ball reached Ishfaq Ahmed. Ishfaq, who, according to many, played the best football on Friday, set up Lalawmpuiya with a scorching through pass. The striker had only the goalkeeper to beat and did so successfully from the top of the box with a neat finish.

Lalawmpuiya, adjudged the best player of the match, was guilty of missing at least a couple of sitters and should have easily completed his hattrick before being replaced by Branco in the 81st minute.

Bagan got a number of chances after their second goal, but had to wait until the 84th minute to score the third one. Substitute Branco scored within just three minutes of coming on to the field. He managed to get to the end of a Barreto cross but the touch was not good enough to drive the ball into the net. It was slowly rolling in when Branco lunged forward and sent it in with Peerless defender Srikanta Koley diving to make a clearance.

There was some controversy about the goal as Peerless claimed it was a foul on Koley, who had to leave the ground injured.

The defending champions looked a bit rusty in their first outing of the season. Barreto, their mainstay, was completely off colour and looked slow off the blocks. He lost his temper on quite a few occasions and was shown the yellow card in the 60th minute.

The defence, which was not tested at all with goalkeeper Sangram Mukherjee hardly troubled, might find the going tough against a fast-paced attack. However, they looked confident in aerial balls with the tall Odafe and Anand Vasan holding fort.

Teams

Mohun Bagan: Sangram Mukherjee, Habibur Rehman Mondal, Peter Odafe, Anand Vasan, Rahul Kumar (Malswamtluanga 72), Sanjoy Boro (Suman Bose 69), Lalkamal Bhowmick, James Singh, Ishfaq Ahmed, Lalawmpuiya (Branco Cardozo 81), Jose Barreto.

Peerless: Arunava Das, Zoheb Hassan, Madhab Das, Srikanta Koley (Rahul Bhattacharjee 87), Bapi Saha, Rohit Roy, Uttam Debnath (Krishna Tudu 59), James Agbo, Tanay Shankar Halder, Babin Biswas, Suraj Singh (Debjit Bhowmick 41).

Referee: Dhanapati Roy