Mohun Bagan’s Suraj Mondal (left) and Ryuji Sueoka at the Salt Lake Stadium, on Thursday

Calcutta: Mohun Bagan scraped past 13th placed West Bengal Police 2-1 in their penultimate CFL Premier Division encounter at the Salt Lake Stadium, here on Thursday.

With Chirag United beating Kalighat 3-0 at Khardah Stadium, both teams are on even keel with 36 points from 14 matches. However, with a better goal difference, Chirag United can create history with a draw while Bagan will need a victory on May 25.

Coach Biswajit Bhattacharya wanted to give his foreign trio of Jose Ramirez Barreto, Edeh Chidi and Ryuji Sueoka rest before the championship decider against Chirag United.

The move backfired badly as the likes of Chirodeep Chattopadhyay, Subha Kumar, Shanta Kumar, Subhojit Majumdar, Suraj Mondal looked totally out of sorts.

And why not? All these boys have spent bulk of the season either being injured or cooling their heels. The inevitable happened. Their was no co-ordination between three departments of the team.

To everyone’s horror, the policemen went ahead in the 10th minute. Kishore Mullick took advantage of a defensive blunder as he slotted past a hapless Chirodeep who played his first ‘serious’ match in Bagan jersey. For the record, the last time he played was a two-minute show against Bayern Munich in a 2008 friendly.

However, Bagan restored parity in the very next minute when Suraj Mondal’s left-footer went in. After that the policemen defended dourly.

Although Bagan enjoyed better possession, there wasn’t a single crack at the goal till the Bagan coach introduced Sueoka.

Sueoka brought some urgency in the attack and, then, six minutes before close, slotted home a Shiekh Azim square pass to give his team a valuable three points

Midfielder Subhojit was adjudged Man-of-the-Match, a choice which might have surprised the player himself.

Police goalkeeper Soumavo Ghosh fractured his left fore-arm in the 53rd minute.

Teams

Mohun Bagan: Chirodeep Chattopadhyay, Zenith Genius, Deepak Mondal, Sheikh Azim, N. Mohanraj, S. Santha Kumar (Ryuji Sueoka, 57th), Rakesh Masih, Subha Kumar (James Singh, 46 th), Subhojit Majumdar, Suraj Mondal (Snehasish Chakraborty, 74 th), Ishfaq Ahmed

West Bengal Police: Soumavo Ghosh, (Palash Kundu, 55 th), Manoj Das, Parbesh Hossain Molla, Mehtab Ali Sapui, Kishore Mullick (Prashanta Sarkar, 89 th), Himadri Chakraborty (Dipankar Das, 90+1), Prayashu Halder, Swarup Kumar Dey, Indrajit Sil, Shankar Sil

Referee: Debahish Mishra

MoM: Subhojit Majumdar