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ISL Final: Counter-attacking Bagan take on Mumbai's possession game
The final of the seventh edition of the Indian Super League (ISL) on Saturday will be a classic contest of contrasting styles of play between Habas’s Bagan and Sergio Lobera’s Mumbai City FC.
Like he did a few times during the course of his media conference on Friday, Antonio Habas raised both arms slightly from the comfort of his chair. “I think so,” the ATK Mohun Bagan head coach said after a pause, responding to a question on whether he thought he faces unfair criticism on his team's style of play despite being the joint-league toppers. “We were first; 40 points ATK Mohun Bagan and 40 points Mumbai. Different style of play, but we also play good football. Football is not only about possession of the ball. You can dominate the ball, but not dominate football,” he added.
The final of the seventh edition of the Indian Super League (ISL) on Saturday will be a classic contest of contrasting styles of play between Habas’s Bagan and Sergio Lobera’s Mumbai City FC. Both coaches come from Spain, but from two distinct schools of football. Lobera’s new-look Mumbai City, mirroring other clubs of the City Football Group, has sworn by the theme of "beautiful" football, a brand that flaunts its attacking prowess by bossing ball possession and threading a mesmeric web of passes.
Bagan, under Habas, have sought to be more effective than charming, focusing on the result more than how it's arrived at. It has worked: they finished the league stage on equal points with Mumbai City who won the Shield thanks to a better head-to-head record. Both teams won 12 times in the league stage and lost four.
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Their different approaches are reflected in the stats as well. Mumbai scored the most number of goals in the league stage (35); Bagan conceded the least (15). Mumbai have the highest number of goals this season in the first half (21 out of 37); Bagan have the highest number of goals in the second half (24 out of 31). Both teams have had a similar volume of shots at goal (90), but Mumbai outnumber Bagan in the total passes (10,570 to 7,311), crosses (313 to 247) and corners (117 to 96).
But while Lobera’s debut with Mumbai City has largely been a success story already, he is yet to experience what it takes to win an ISL final, losing the 2018-19 title clash with FC Goa. Habas, on the other side, is yet to experience what it feels like to lose an ISL final, marshalling ATK's title win last season and Atletico de Kolkata's triumph in the inaugural edition in 2014.
“The aim is play to win, to play well and win. That is our idea,” Habas said on Friday.
Lobera was forced to deviate somewhat from his attacking football mantra in the his team’s semi-final against FC Goa, especially in the second leg in which Mumbai had zero shots on goal yet scrambled to cross the line on penalties after a barren draw. But while the Spaniard acknowledged that it might not always be possible to call the shots against quality opponents, he promised to stay true to his style on Saturday.
“It’s the most important thing, because you're strong this way,” Lobera said on Friday. “If you're playing in another way, you're not at your strongest. Our style of play from the beginning has been the same. We're strong playing in this way, and we need to be loyal to our style of play.”
While staying committed to their style, Mumbai have also managed 10 clean sheets this season, the joint-most with Bagan. The team’s defensive structure has held on to its own amid the attacking mindset, courtesy players like Mourtada Fall, Amey Ranawade and, of course, goalkeeper and captain Amrinder Singh.
“If you see the coach's style of playing a lot more attacking football, to keep 10 clean sheets in it is a big deal,” Singh said on Friday. “If we have another clean sheet in tomorrow’s (Saturday’s) big game, we would have done half the job.”
That can be quite a task against Bagan's attacking trio of Roy Krishna, David Williams and Manvir Singh, although Mumbai have managed to keep them under check in both the league meetings that ended 1-0 and 2-0 in Mumbai’s favour. But Krishna has some extra incentive to find the net on Saturday—the Fijian is tied on 14 goals with Goa's Igor Angulo for the Golden Boot.
“If I win the Golden Boot, it'll be a bonus. But for me it's just about getting the result and winning the trophy. And I'll do anything to achieve it,” Krishna said on Friday.
