A man down in the 61st minute. Up by a goal 10 minutes later.
Mohun Bagan Super Giant thwarted everything East Bengal threw at them for the remainder of the match to win the 132nd edition of the Durand Cup at Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata on Sunday. A great start to the season it was for the defending Indian Super League champions, who avenged the 1-0 setback suffered against their traditional rivals in the group stage.
East Bengal fans would obviously feel dejected to see their 12-year wait for a trophy get longer. Expectations were high after the new-look team under new coach Carles Cuadrat started the season on a promising and beat NorthEast United in a tie-breaker after trailing 0-2 in the semi-final. They had more shots on goal and on target in the final, but could not convert those into something tangible.
Mohun Bagan had just three shots on goal, and one on target. It came after what could have become the turning point of the evening. Already on a yellow, Anirudh Thapa made a dangerous and needless challenge in the East Bengal half. The expulsion of the holding midfielder could have tilted the balance in East Bengal’s favour because the battle was mostly confined to the midfield.
But for once, they were caught defending from a little too deep and there was space in the middle third. This allowed Dimitri Petratos an unchallenged run down the right. The edge of the penalty box was crowded when he cut in. Everybody expected the Australian to pass the ball, but he took it to his left foot, looked up to pick his spot and drove it low into the far corner. There was a deflection on the way which took the ball fractionally away from goalkeeper Prabhsukhan Gill.
That was a rare bright spot in an otherwise unspectacular contest, where the teams looked intent on not conceding. Mohun Bagan coach Juan Ferrando played a 4-2-3-1 formation and his team had marginal superiority in possession in the first half. There were no real chances created other than the one in the dying minutes when Petratos shot wide, after being set up by Sahal Abdul Samad.
East Bengal’s 4-3-3 effectively became 4-3-2-1 with Javier Silveiro being the lone man up front. For the most part, they had more bodies behind the ball in either half and succeeded in blunting what Mohun Bagan tried to achieve. But they hardly broke in before conceding the goal and were reduced to shooting from a distance, which seldom threatened the goal.
Having stuck to this ploy under Cuadrat so far, East Bengal were caught off guard when Petratos started his run because they did not have enough men around him. They pressed hard after that and ended the match with a better ball possession due to their attacking display towards the end. Substitute Cleyton Silva shot at the goalkeeper from outside the box and when the hero of the previous derby Nandhakumar Sekar’s feeble header landed in the hands of Vishal Kaith, it was over.