Mohun Bagan salvages some pride

After an early exit from the 34th Federation Cup, the Mariners had nothing but pride to play for on Monday. At the Kanchenjunga Stadium in Siliguri, the record thirteen times champions registered their first win of the Federation Cup, beating Mohammedan Sporting 2-1 in the concluding Group B match.

With only academic interest left in the match, coach Santosh Kashyap decided to rest some of their key players, including striker Okolie Odafa and defender Syed Rahim Nabi for this match. And to their utmost surprise, the team put up a much better performance on Monday.

In the 17th minute after Bagan was awarded a penalty, Jewel Raja failed to score from the penalty spot, unfortunately hitting the upright. The half time strategy worked wonders for Bagan as Striker CS Sabeeth and midfielder Manish Maithani played well to score the goals for Bagan.

Sabeeth gathered a through ball from Raja and found the back of the net in the 50th minute. Manish struck just three minutes after that, leaving their opponents in disarray. David Sunday managed to pull one back for Mohammedan Sporting in the 63rd minute to make it 2-1, but that was not enough.

Bagan wanted to stick with coach Santosh Kashyap despite their team’s disastrous outing in the Federation Cup. Bagan’s general secretary Anjan Mitra said, “Four games are not enough to judge a coach so we are not sacking him and we also don’t want to appoint any technical director. We are confident of bouncing back in the I-League and intend to keep him till the end of the season”.

Bagan managed to bag four points and remained at third spot in the Group B table while Mohammedan Sporting languished at the bottom.