The much anticipated match between 2 heavyweights Odisha FC and Mohun Bagan ended up as a goalless draw at Kalinga Stadium, Bhubaneswar. Both the teams failed to impress the crowd with their gameplay. Two coaches seemed to be bit caustous and didn’t want to loose points. Odisha without Ahmed Jahouh not very impressive in their midfield and from the setpieces in other hand Mohun Bagan also failed to capitalized thier chances and bit slow in their transition.
Match started with a slow pace and both teams tried to take control over midfield. On the 4th minute Isaac took the first shot on target for Odisha by intercepting a loose ball from Mohun Bagan goalkeeper Vishal. On the 16th minute a clearance from Anwar deflected again by Isaac and almost ended up in goal but Vishal couldn’t let the ball go into the net and save the day by conceeding a corner.
Mohun Bagan took control of the match just after that and they got their best chance on 23rd minute when Odisha defender Delgado failed to clear a brilliant 30 yards ball from Ashish Rai and Armando Sadiku with one on one with Amrinder couldn’t capitalized the oppeetunity by taking too much time and in the end blasted over the goalpost. The striker again got a golden oppeetunity on 33rd minute when a loose ball was intercepted by Sahal and made it for Sadiku but this time Amrinder’s vital touch denied him.
Odisha also came close in the injury time of the first half when Diego Mauricio’s shot from the close angle of the right hand side in the box hit the crosspiece. In the second half though Mohun Bagan starting with positive intent and 51st minute when Manvir intercepted Moutaza Fall inside the box and Kauko then forwaded a square pass to Sadiku who’s weak grounder landed in Amrinder’s gloves. Manvir also intercepted a clearance inside the box and took a snapshot but his shot failed to hit the target. Roy Krishna who is heavily marked and failed to impress in the major part of the game made a solo move on 62nd minute but his weak effort went wide of the post. In the last 10 minutes both teams up the tempo little bit high in their attack but couldn’t really break the defense of their opponents. In the last moment substitue Cummings took a header from a Ashish Rai’s cross from the left wing which denied by Amrinder.
Mohun Bagan seemed to be happy with one point when they had the chance to go on top of the table. But, we failed to understand the decision of not using Liston Colaco when he is among the goal scoring form of his. The late inclusion of Thapa and Abhishek also didn’t make any differences in the match. Odisha without Jahouh didn’t create any clear cut chances and also couldn’t take much risk to gain the 3 points from the match.
Odisha continue to lead the table with 32 points from 16 matches but they are now in touching distance with Mumbai City FC who are on 2nd position with 31 points from 15 matches just behind them is Mohun Bagan who are also couldn’t made any progress to their previous position and continue to be in the 3rd position with 30 points in 15 matches. They will going to face Khalid Jamil’s Jamshedpur FC who are in a redhot form on 1st of March in Kolkata. The travelling Mariners who were in expectation of a victory are in numbers and expressed their presence in the gallery but with this result they were left with bit dissapointment.
