The winter is about to leave West Bengal but another
Kolkata derby has appeared with its entire craze once again due to which Kolkata
dwellers have started to shiver from football fever once again. This is the
only thing which can divide the peoples of cultural capital of the country into
two parts.
The
game of 9th February will be grabbing a lot of eye balls after the
way in which the first leg match came to an abrupt end & regarding to that
the poor consequences Mohun Bagan had gone through.
Eventually
this is the second encounter of this season between two Kolkata giants but the
first clash between two sides was abandoned after first half when Mohun Bagan refused
to restart the match after half time regarding the heavy fan fury of Kolkata
crowd which led one of their key player Rahim Nabi injured heavily by a missile
pelted from the crowd. In later AIFF declared East Bengal a clear 3-0 winner on
that abandoned match moreover all the point till that match Mohun Bagan obtained
were taken off & they had to pay a heavy amount of compensation also.
After
that incident three months have already been passed, gallons of water have
flown by the river Ganges but the bitter rivalry between these two sides become
much more fierce following all those incidents happened in their previous encounter.
Right
now both the sides are fighting for two complete different & contrasting
goals. While the Green & Maroon side are fighting for surviving from relegation
then the Red & Gold brigade are fighting for the championship.
Prior to that match both the sides are looking
heavily balanced, both of them have won their last encounters in convincing
fashion against their respective opponents.
After
a gap of few months Mohun Bagan are back on their winning streak, notched up
their first win in their curtailed campaign against the giant killer ONGC by
3-1 margin.The more important thing is Odafa & Tolgay two main weapons of
Karim Bencharifa scored in that match. Following that match in a domestic
league match Mohun Bagan hammered another local giant killer Techno Aryan by
4-1 margin where Odafa & Tolgay both found the net once again.
Meanwhile
East Bengal edged past Pailan Arrows narrowly by 2-1 margin in their last
I-League encounter which guided them in the top of the table once again,
currently they reached in 39 points from 19 matches while Churchill Brothers is
still standing on 38 points after 17th round. The defeat of Curchill
Brothers against Sporting Clube on last Friday & the absence of key players
in the likes of Belal in Churchill defence who left for his country & Beto
in midfield due to injury brought a breather for East Bengal in their effort ahead,
a silver line is still visible from here for them.
Following
their last I-League match the Red & Gold side also won their domestic
league match against Eastern Rail easily by a thrashing 4-1 margin.
If we
keep the points aside & analyze the current conditions & standings of
both the sides then we will get both of them are prepared in the similar
fashion. Moreover apart from Manandeep Singh’s card problem there is not any
other injury & card problem in both these sides.
Its
going to be the battle of life & death for two giants from different
perspectives a because if East Bengal
wins then they will escalate themselves 3 steps ahead towards the holy grail of
Indian football in the other hand if Mohun Bagan loses then they will go
towards the darker side of the relegation. While Ease Bengal is leading the table
then after the revised fixture currently Mohun Bagan is standing at the bottom
of the table with only 5 points in their hand from 14 matches.
So from
this point of view win is compulsory for the both sides for keeping their focus
& existence alive ahead.
Undoubtedly
it can be easily told that the attacking line of Mohun Bagan is far better than
East Bengal but unfortunately there is not any existence of midfield in Green
& Maroon side who can supply the ball to those goal getters, the condition
of defenceline is also very poor even they don’t have potential to hold the
lead if the side scores before.
In
later stage Mohun Bagan tried to do damage control in those positions by
bringing Quintom Jacobs from Salgaocar who became very fruitful in last two
matches & Sushanta Matthew from archrival camp who also provided notable
service in last two matches.
Meanwhile
if we go through the East Bengal defence then we will get the best composed
defence of the country in their hand who has swallowed the least number of
goals in this I-League yet.
Whether
the attacking line of East Bengal is concern they will miss the service of
Manandeep Singh, they will depend heavily on experienced Chidi Eddeh & newly recruited
Australian Andrei Borisich who is not tested yet against any real heavy
opponent.
This
is going to be the battle of two experienced coaches also between Karim
Bencharifa of Mohun Bagan & James Morgan of East Bengal both of them are
heavily experienced & have seen the both sides of the coin.
While
Karim along with the entire Mohun Bagan camp will heavily bank on this trio
Odafa, Tolgay & Nabi then Morgan along with the arch rival camp will also
heavily rely on Penn, Mehtab & Chiddi combinaton.
The referees’
panel of this derby will consist of Santosh Kumar, Sri Krishna, Mohammad Kamil
& Dinesh Nayar. Sri Krishna is tipped to be with the whistle.
This
time Mohun Bagan is the organizer of that derby they have raised the price of
the tickets thrice more than its previous price & reminding the previous
derby they have taken lots of security majors to prevent any kind of violence
in the ground. Very first time in Indian football the I-League authority under
AIFF is sending a security officer to look after security concerns regarding
that match.
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