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Mohun Bagan faced off against Churchill Brothers in their Round of 16 clash in the Hero Super Cup in Bhubaneswar. It was also the first time in the Super Cup that two I league teams were facing off against each other. The clash was also a confirmation that no matter what the result is another I league team is sure to feature in the Quarter Finals of the Super Cup.
Churchill came into the game with high hopes as they qualified for the round of 16 by getting the better of ISL side Delhi Dynamos.
The match started in a slow-paced manner with both the teams measuring up the other. Churchill did eventually take the lead in the first half, the halftime ended with the scoreboard reading 1-1.
Bagan upped the ante in the second half and eventually won the game 2-1, with Dicka scoring a brace and helping Mohun Bagan progress to the quarter-final of the super cup.
On that note, let us take a look at the 5 Talking Points of today’s game:
#5 Wills Plaza breaks his Mohun Bagan duck
Plaza was a favourite of the Bagan fans as he failed to score a single goal in all the derbies he played against them for East Bengal. Fans of both the teams will still remember his misses in the Siliguri derby. The fans of Mohun Bagan went to such an extent that they started calling Plaza a Bagan legend for all those misses.
All those taunts were put to rest today when Plaza barged into the Mohun Bagan box by beating three defenders and blasting the ball into the roof of the net. With this goal Plaza also became the highest goal scorer in the Super Cup counting the qualification phase, with three goals.
He could have scored a hattrick today had he not seen three of his efforts go just wide in the dying moments of the game.
#4 Comedy of errors in the final minute of the first half
It all started with Sk. Faiz running a crooked line to barge into the box beating his man. Nicholas Fernandes who was tracking back, tripped the Bagan winger inside the box to award Bagan a penalty and a chance to get back into the game.
Dicka stepped up to take the penalty kick but hit a feeble penalty right into the keeper's hands, the keeper, on the other hand, failed to hold onto the ball despite having made a simple save. The keeper in-turn played the ball into the patch of the onrushing Dicka who this time didn’t make a mistake to convert the penalty on the rebound.
#3 Cagey first half, more open second half
The game started off in a cagey manner with both the teams looking to play a safe brand of football and not concede early. Both the teams made a lot of miss passes and couldn’t keep possession of the ball for long periods. Both the teams went into the lemon break tied on 1-1 when Bagan equalised through a Dicka penalty rebound after Plaza had given the Red Machines the lead in the 30th minute.
Both the teams came into the second half sensing a victory, but as the Bagan midfielders Cameroon Watson and Yuta Kinowaki started controlling the midfield Bagan started getting an upper hand in the game, and it showed in the scoreline also as Bagan went ahead through a Dicka goal. They also started creating more chances compared to the team from Goa, and the quality in both the teams was showing.
Churchill kept troubling the Bagan defence and had two brilliant chances to win the game in the dying moments of the game only to see both the efforts go agonisingly wide of the mark.
#2 Monday’s injury hurt Churchill badly
Monday and Hussain Eldor were doing a relatively good job to keep Dicka and Akram quiet in the first half. Dicka didn’t get much of the ball in the first half and it was largely due to Monday’s presence in defence for Churchill.
Monday showed signs of being injured in the early stages of the second half and was ultimately substituted in the 55th minute and that had a big effect on Churchill’s game. Bagan started getting more of the ball, and gaps started showing in the Churchill defence.
Churchill also missed Monday’s aerial presence which helped Bagan immensely, as the 2nd goal which was also the winning goal of the game, came from a long aerial free-kick which was headed down by Akram to Dicka who scored a simple tap-in from 5 yards out. Had Monday been there Churchill's chances of defending the long aerial ball would have increased.
#1 Mohun Bagan’s attacking quadrangle come in handy to snatch a victory
The attacking powers of Mohun Bagan were well known, but in the first half, the attackers were rather subdued. In the second half, the likes of Sheik Fiaz, Dicka, Akram, and Nikhil Kadam came to the forefront and started taking a hold of the game.
Both the wingers Kadam and Fiaz interchanged their positions very often and that had a big effect on the Churchill defence. It was Faiz who earned the penalty from which Dicka scored, and it was the Akram-Dicka combo which teamed up to score the winning goal, with Akram providing the headed assist to Dicka. All four of them both the wingers and strikers had a big role to play in this victory for Bagan.
