The two premier title holders of the Indian circuit clashing for first blood. An opportunity to cement their claim as India’s best of the current lot once again.
That was Mohun Bagan SG v Mumbai City on the opening matchweek of the ISL.
The new season started exactly from where it ended the last time around – Bagan v Mumbai, at the Salt Lake.
Jose Molina returned to the ISL lining his side up in an apparent 3-4-3 set-up.
Kaith in goal, Dippendu Biswas, Alberto Rodriguez and Subhashish Bose stood as the center backs.
Liston Colaco and Ashish Rai took over the flanks and the midfield pairing of Apuia and Suryawanshi formed the base of the team.
Greg Stewart, Dimi Petratos and Jason Cummings played up-front in a tight knit, rather central offensive triad.
Kratky meanwhile played a typical 4-3-3 with Tiri and Mehtab being flanked by Sahil Panwar and Valpuia in defence, Yoel van Nieff, Jon Toral and Jayesh Rane in midfield behind a rapid wing duo of Bipin and Changgte, spearheaded by new man Karelis up front.
Just as soon as the game kicked off, and Mumbai found themselves in the front foot.
Identifying the space left behind the Bagan wing-backs, particularly Ashish Rai, Mumbai looked to isolate and release Bipin Singh in one on ones and transitional situations against Rai and it worked.
After a few such close shaves, Mumbai found the net in a move that stemmed from the same route.
But it was chalked off due to Bipin’s instinctive last minute touch on Jon Toral’s goal bound shot marking the play as offside.
Shortly following Mumbai’s rued chances, Bagan scored.
In probably their first attack of the game, against the run of play, from a sequence that began off a free-kick.
Liston’s low cross was touched onto Tiri by Lachenpa. All that was left to do was watch the ball trickle into the net, before they could do anything.
A momentary lapse translated into a goal. The goal provoked a change in the nature of the game.
Suddenly, Mumbai could not be just dominant, they were the chasers and Bagan did not need to be dominant, for they were the leaders.
There was a visible paradigm shift in the game.
Regardless, Mumbai pushed on, created chance after chance but to no avail.
Bagan shifted to a more observable 4-4-2 in defence.
It didn’t help much though, as Bipin continued to get the better of Ashish, especially with the combination with Jayesh Rane. Mumbai’s left side was their epicenter of attacks.
But just as Mumbai began to get the game into their control; Bagan doubled their lead. This time through a corner.
While it does feel Lachenpa could have done better by seizing the ball at the first opportunity, instead of parrying it off; the goal also showed Bagan’s conviction in their set-piece routines.
Both goals coming through second phase attacks of set-pieces is a noteworthy observation.
The rest of the half played out in a cagey manner.
Mumbai seemed to spend a little more attention on their defence as they could not afford to concede one more. Meanwhile MB seemed to be in cruise control; happy to secure the 2-0 lead and wait to hit on transitions.
Photo Credits: @IndSuperLeague via X
Apart from the substitution of Jeremy Manzorro for Jon Toral just before half-time, no changes were made for the second half in particular.
The second period began in similar circumstances.
But yet again, just as Mumbai was gaining some control Bagan broke out yet again through Dimi Petratos, had it not been for Valpuia, the game could have been all over by the 48th minute. The game then continued at a similar pace till the 63rd minute.
In the 63rd minute, Petr Kratky bought on PN Noufal for his ISL debut in place of Jayesh Rane.
Bu this was not a like-for-like change. Noufal is a fiery winger, while Jayesh was playing the role of an intricate attacking midfielder.
So what was the plan?
The key was Jeremy Manzorro. With the Frenchman’s introduction, Mumbai began engaging van Nieff and Manzorro. With the pair of Tiri and Mehtab behind them, they seemed pretty secure in-possesion.
This meant the creative responsibilities of Jayesh Rane could be then vested in Manzorro and that gave Mumbai the space to incorporate one more direct, outlet attacker in the forward line without compromising on their ball retention capacity.
From then on, Mumbai in possession was effectively a 4-2-4 with Changtte and Karelis down the middle, Noufal on the left and Bipin on the right.
The changed set-up from Mumbai gave them a slight edge in attack.
With elite switchers such as van Nieff and Manzorro controlling the game, their wingers could really stretch the pitch and enforce 1v1s against Bagans full-backs really close to MB’s box.
Both Noufal and Bipin are excellent crossers, which meant MB’s full-backs had no choice but to go out and face them in 1v1 situations.
But their footstep to getting back in the game came through a set-piece (yet again in the game).
Noufal’s perfect back-post delivery was eventually bundled home by Tiri, effectively his second of the game, but first at the right place.
Following the goal, Molina bought on Thapa and Sahal in place of Suryavanshi and Liston. This gave MB a numerical advantage in midfield. Although, 10 minutes later MB were forced to bring off Alberto Rodriguez for Tom Aldred; breaking their defensive partnership that held the shipp tight till then.
As the clock continued to tick down and an equaliser failed to arrive, Kratky went all out.
He changed into an apparent 3-2-5 set-up.
He bought on Brandon Fernandes, Vikram Partap Singh and Thaer Krouma in place of Jeremy Manzorro, Bipin and Nikos Karelis. It meant that Mumbai ended the game with just 3 foreigners on the pitch.
The risk was a high move but it bore rewards.
One of Ashish Rai’s premature crosses was intercepted and quickly turned over.
Krouma then played a brilliant pass to find Noufal up against Thapa. The Malabar express sweeped past the Bagan midfielder and played a neat cutback to the edge of the box to an oncoming Thaer Krouma who scored the equaliser at the 90th.
Five minutes of add-on was played but both sides determined to not lose any of the points they were holding closed out for a draw.
In the last season, all Bagan-Mumbai clashes had a title-decider flavour to them. Whether it is for points or for silverware, this one point is bound to prove costly.
Over time, it may increase in value as they did not just gain one, but stripped two off their rival in the process.