I League: East Bengal takes round one in glorious, madcap Kolkata Derby

It is inconceivable that a game of football should split a city in 99% of the metropolises that the sport is played in. Buenos Aires, Tehran and Kolkata remain exceptions to the rule.

There is one game that towers over the rest, that unites and divides the Bengali Bhadralok (gentlemen) in equal measure. There is no ailment that their beloved ‘phutbol’ can’t cure – it’s the magic elixir, even better than the syrupy tea that one can sample on the roadside.

The Kolkata Derby, a century-old slug-fest between the two grand relics of Indian football – Mohun Bagan and East Bengal – has an unique tinge to it.

In 2018, a spectator puts it bluntly, “Here, we don’t have those Hindu-Muslim fights. The only two things that split us – East Bengal or Mohun Bagan, Left or Trinamool.” In Kolkata, the only thing worse than being abused by rival fans is to declare neutrality. You don’t choose sides – you’re born Maroon or Red and Gold, it simply is in the blood.

The clashes haven’t always been civil. A 1980 match saw 16 people lose their lives in spectator violence, a 5-0 drubbing of Bagan in 1975 saw the club tent being burnt and their stars Subrata Bhattacharya and Prasun Banerjee spent the night in a boat on the Ganges.

2018 hasn’t changed much. Instead of the ultras arriving in inhuman hand-drawn carriages or walking out of the city’s snaky, ultra-thin lanes, they proceed to the venue in pick-up trucks – flags, banners, drums in tow.

Also read: Match report of the derby

The positions of the teams – sixth and eighth in the I-League table adds an extra edge to the clash with fans realising that a loss in the biggest game of the season could be potentially fatal to title hopes. There are 64,867 referees, judges, juries and executioners on the day – the players can only hope to come out on the right side by the end.

The venue is the iconic Yuva Bharati Krirangan or simply put the ‘Salt Lake Stadium’, the undisputed home of Indian football. The World Cup has seen added measures in place – some understandable like the introduction of bucket seats, others plain weird like the decision to not open the gates till an hour before the match.

Bagan coach Shankarlal Chakraborty tells reporters that Sony Norde is out of the Derby the day before the match, perhaps a strategic call to not let this huge piece of news affect attendances. Around these parts, Norde is the Messiah for those in Green and Maroon.

Quess East Bengal gaffer Alejandro Menendez specified that new recruit Jaime Colado Santos would get ‘some’ minutes. The Spaniard started the derby, a huge match to debut in and a pressure-cooker situation to be roasted in.

Colado put in a magnificent shift, ran the Bagan defence ragged and pulled the strings effectively. Later, Shankarlal would accuse him of ‘play-acting’, while Menendez had nothing but praise for his man. Yuta Kinowaki, the last man to debut for either club in the derby, was a shadow of the colossus who had taken the big game by the scruff of the neck on his first taste of the big game.

Bagan man Kingsley Obumneme would see red, the first yellow for elbowing Colado and the second for a foul on Jobby Justin. Shankarlal would say later, “The players get carried away in the heat of the derby. Kingsley was on a yellow and he did too, but he shouldn’t have.”

One man, who stood head and shoulders above his Indian counterparts on either side, was Jobby Justin. The striker from Kerala ran his lungs out and capped his performance with an overhead kick, signs of his natural goal-scoring prowess.

He missed an one-on-one at the very end, a combination of the ragged running all game long and the mind simply switching off along with the body. That was his only mis-step throughout the 90 minutes, hassling and harrying the Bagan defenders. This is an Indian forward with five goals in seven games, and Menendez certainly thought he should have been on the plane to UAE.

Stephen Constantine has picked Jeje Lalpekhlua, Sumeet Passi, Manvir Singh and Farukh Chowdhary among his 34 probables, none of whom provide the zip and zing that Justin does at the moment.

The East Bengal faithful had much to cheer for but the sight of an Indian poacher in their colours will warm the hearts more than most. Justin’s improvement during his time at East Bengal has not gone unnoticed and despite not being called up for the Asian Cup probables, 2019 should see him in the blue of the national team.

The aftermath of the result was, like it always is, bipolar. The Maroon and Green section was empty with some of them presumably angry and waiting for their stars outside the team bus. The Red and Golds celebrated long into the night, thronging the seating galleries with flares and flags.

This was a major result for the Lal Holud, who hadn’t beaten Bagan in seven competitive meetings. April 2, 2016 was the last time that East Bengal had defeated their neighbours, not counting Bagan’s forfeiture of a Calcutta Football League fixture in September 2016. With Chennai City’s draw against Minerva, this gives East Bengal renewed hope in the title race.

Shankarlal’s defensive tactics came back to haunt his team, and his time at Bagan, despite re-capturing the CFL title after eight years, may be up. The fight that his team displayed with 10 hadn’t been on show when they were 11. The title race may be as good as over for the Mariners. The very partisan local media made their evident displeasure at his failure known in the post-match press conference.

Despite the low expectations, this was a firecracker of a Derby, possibly the best in years. There’s nothing in Indian sport quite like it, no single sporting event that brings rich and poor, urban and rural, male and female together like the Kolkata Derby. It is quite the intransigent religious experience propagated by the masses and if your belief started to slip, Sunday’s spectacle might have sent your faith into overdrive.