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Kolkata welcomes Durand Cup but Bagan, East Bengal skip it
Five ISL teams, defending champions Gokulam Kerala FC, Mohammedan Sporting among 16-teams in 130th edition which begins on Sunday.
For FC Goa, the 130th Durand Cup, which begins here on Sunday, is a chance to add silverware. “There is nothing quite like going into the ISL (Indian Super League) than by lifting one of India’s most prestigious and historic trophies,” said Ravi Puskur, vice-president strategy FC Goa.
Defending champions and I-League winners Gokulam Kerala FC too are coming to keep the trophies --- the winners get three: the Durand Cup, the President’s Cup and the Shimla Trophy --- from travelling elsewhere. And the need to improve game by game so that we can come close to being at our best in the I-League, said Gokulam Kerala’s Italian coach Vincenzo Alberto Annese.
Like FC Goa, Gokulam Kerala are bringing four foreigners including 31-year Afghan midfielder and captain Sharif Mukhammad. Along with 14 homegrown players, Goa are coming with seasoned Spanish campaigners Edu Bedia, Alberto Noguera, Ivan Gonzalez and Jorge Ortiz.
For Bengaluru FC, Hyderabad FC and Kerala Blasters, the 16-team competition is a chance to provide game time to the squads. “It is very important to play games in this part of the pre-season. These games will help our players boost their confidence,” said Kerala Blasters’ new coach Ivan Vukomanovic. Speaking separately, Bengaluru FC’s German coach Marco Pezzaiuoli said: “They’ve gone a complete year without any competitive games. We recently played the AFC Cup where our youngsters got chances and now they will get more of those chances with the Durand Cup. I think it is the prefect tournament in the pre-season.”
In the ISL and I-League last term, even most regular players didn't get more than 20 games. “We sit eight months at home and play for four,” said defender Dharmarajan Ravanan of FC Bengaluru United. Tournaments like the Durand Cup help us get more games, he said.
FC Bengaluru United will also play the I-League qualifiers from October 4. “It’s a good opportunity to see where we are. Last season, we went into the qualifiers without competition exposure,” said coach Richard Hood during a Zoom interaction on Saturday.
For ATK Mohun Bagan and SC East Bengal this edition will mean none of the above. East Bengal are scrambling to form a team after a rapprochement with investors. Bagan’s case is curiouser. They did pre-seasons, played the AFC Cup group stage and qualified for the inter-zonal semi-final and then gave the squad a break when the Durand Cup and the Calcutta Football League were on.
“ATK Mohun Bagan couldn’t participate in the Durand Cup or the Calcutta Football League because it has qualified for the AFC playoff on September 22 and because many of their players have been called for national duty,” said team CEO Raghu Iyer. Bagan have five players on national duty who would be free after Sunday, the first day of the Durand Cup which runs till October 3.
ATK Mohun Bagan couldn’t field a reserves team because training of junior and reserves sides have been discontinued” due to the pandemic, said Iyer.
Contrast this with Bengaluru FC who maintained a reserves side and six age group teams through 2020 and 2021. “Beyond the desire to win trophies with the first team, there is very little going on at the club. In eight years we don’t have a ground of our own or a residential set-up for youth,” said an ATK Mohun Bagan official requesting anonymity given the sensitive nature of the issue.
“It is sad that neither Mohun Bagan nor East Bengal are playing when the Durand has come home,” said Shyam Thapa who has won the competition with both and the Gorkha Brigade. “Mohun Bagan have so many players, why couldn’t they field a team? It would have helped their players get ready for ISL and the AFC Cup,” said Thapa. In 2019, before they merged with ATK, Mohun Bagan played the Durand Cup and the Kolkata league which, like now, was held simultaneously.
In their absence, Mohammedan Sporting, who in 1940 became the first Indian club to win what is Asia’s oldest and the world’s third oldest football competition, are Kolkata’s only team. The first time Mohammedan Sporting won the Durand Cup was also the first time the tournament moved to Delhi. Barring once in 2014 when was held in Goa, that was the home of the Durand Cup, organised by the Durand Football Tournament Society, till it came to Kolkata in 2019. With support from the West Bengal government, this is where it will stay till 2025.
End of Delhi’s annual ritual
It is a decision Shaji Prabhakaran, president Football Delhi, has yet to come to terms with. "It was an annual ritual for India's top footballers to come to Delhi for the Durand. Delhi benefitted from the association and added value to it. In Kolkata, which already has a strong local league and the IFA Shield and which hosted the I-League last term, it becomes another tournament. In Delhi, it could have been a marquee event," said Prabhakaran.
In four years that he has been head of Delhi's football unit, which is a member of the Durand society, Prabhakaran said he attended one meeting. That was this year, he said. "By then, the decision to shift to Kolkata till 2025 had been minuted," he said.
"You need to be active 365 days for to uphold the legacy and not just for a few months," said Prabhakaran. “Till the 1990s, the society would do just that. It also organise the Subroto Cup (an all-India inter-school competition) which meant staying in touch with all state associations. They would also follow performances of teams all over India. In one year, they invited a team from Assam which made the semi-finals, “said Jaydeep Basu, journalist and author of a book on Indian football, who was also the joint-editor of the annual magazine brought out every year during the Durand Cup.
