Watching intently the Mohun Bagan-Mahindra United match at Ambedkar Stadium on a sudorific Thursday, I was figuring out why Bagan shouldn’t win this year’s I-League. A huge posse of mediamen along with club officials took the flight out of Kolkata probably hoping to witness another Bagan’s triumph and occupied the vantage positions in the crammed media box much before the scheduled time. But before everybody including the teams could settle down the babumoshais were calling up their sources in distant Margao in Goa where Churchill Brothers were up against a feeble Mohammedan Sporting.
A journalist sitting next to me, whispered, “Churchill had scored.” A couple of minutes later, the Goans hammered yet another. A minute later, I could read their body language. It conveyed a crude message. Bagan’s boat won’t cruise further. Even if they had won against Mahindra, who however dumped their famed rivals 2-1, Churchill’s outright win had settled the issue on points. Bagan will have to wait another season. For the record, a Goan team has prevailed over a Kolkata club for the third successive year.
Going into the final round I-League matches, there were lot of permutations and combinations. What if Mohammedan beat Churchill in Goa? What if Bagan win against Mahindra? But in the end, none of these calculations proved correct as winners were decided by goals rather than calculations and both Churchill and Mahindra went back home with full points.
In my previous article, I had mentioned about a certain arrogance in Churchill (I mean the team). Surprisingly, it stems from their boss, Alemao, a confident and ambitious general who in the past had vowed to make his family football team the India champions. Last year, they had almost finished winners. But Churchill finished on same number of points with Dempo, who pipped their Goan rival on a better goal difference.
On Thursday, the 6-2 demolition of Mohammedan convinced Churchill’s superior dominance both in the match as well as in the entire event. If Alemao is their source of inspiration, Odafa Okolie charted out his team’s success in the middle with his 26-goal bursts in 22 matches. A roughly 1.5 goal per match. An incredible achievement. The figure also explained how the tall and temperamental Odafa single-handedly annihilated the rival defence. Arrogance, brute power and a nose for goals combined to make Odafa the most famous striker after Chima Okorie and Ramirez Barretto, who now seems to have been completely overshadowed by the Nigerian.
