Odafa starts to score goals in practice; 9 players registered in IFA

Today McDowell Mohun Bagan had their practice session in the morning. Chief Coach Santosh Kashyap held a closed-door team meeting with his players and coaching staff for around 45 minutes.

Santosh Kashyap said, "I did team analysis as well as individual analysis of the players who played Saturday's practice match. This has been done to help them improve. Whatever we were lacking at that match, I pointed out to them. I also said to them that they will have to play fearless football and not worry about the pressure of media and supporters. I have given them the example of Odafa and Tolgay, how both of them have handled pressure and performed successfully in Kolkata. I tried to explain to them how not to succumb to pressure. Also there are a few areas of improvement, which I will work out in the training sessions."

Initially, after few rounds of jogging, there was a passing drill with 2 players forming a group. Then the players were divided into 3 teams and a 9 side match was held. When 2 teams were playing, players of the other team were seen playing volleyball behind the goal post.

The four foreign players Odafa Okolie, Tolgay Ozbey, Anyichie Echezona and Stanley  Okoroigwe were kept in one team and few good combination moves were seen from Stanley, Odafa and Tolgay. Odafa scored 2 brilliant goals today. One of the goals saw him holding the ball in front of a defender. Then we saw a sudden deft body faint from Odafa resulting in the defender as well as the goalkeeper committing to one side, and the Nigerian striker just placed the ball inside goal on the other side of the net. Tolgay though scored 1 goal was unlucky as 2 of his shots hit the upright.

Manish Bharghav, Lalrozama Fanai, Bijendra Rai, Lalrin Fela, and Snehasish Chakraborty played well today. Sabeeth scored a nice goal when he headed the ball in from a nice cross of Mohan Sarkar. Manish Maithani scored the winning goal for his team with a neat placement.

Regarding Odafa, Chief Coach said, "We are working on him and trying to make him match fit as soon as possible. I want him to gel with the team, so allowed him to play. Also Odafa always wants to play. If I ask him only to run and run, when the others are playing, it will become boring for him, but of course that does not mean Odafa right now will be playing full match. That he will only do after a few days when he becomes completely match fit."

Goalkeeper coach Hemanta Dora said, "The goalkeeping lineup that we have this year is perhaps the best that we have in many years. We have 3 goalkeepers who has the experience of playing I league matches. Naveen Kumar and Milton Bhowmick are 2 very promising goalkeepers. They are very talented and they have the potential to represent India in future. Naveen though right now is injured and will likely be fit in 2 weeks time."

Mariners might play a couple of practice matches this week.

Meanwhile, the following 9 professional players have registered themselves with IFA in favour of McDowell Mohun Bagan for the 2012-2013 season:
 
1. Warundeep Singh (Previous Club Sporting Clube de Goa)
2. Biswajit Saha (Previous Club Sagaocar SC)
3. Mehrajuddin Wadoo (Previous Club Salgaocar SC)
4. Anil Kumar P.K. (Previous Club Chirag United SC)
5. Bijendra Rai (Previous Club Pailan Arrows)
6. Sabeeth Sathyan (Previous Club Pailan Arrows)
7. Lalrozama Fanai (Previous Club Pailan Arrows)
8. Rajiv Ghosh (Previous Club Pailan Arrows)
9. Aiborlang Khongjee (Previous Club Shillong Lajong FC)

So far, 21 players of McDowell Mohun Bagan have got their registration done in IFA.

The 4 foreign players can register themselves anytime before 31st August. The remaining players are Rakesh Masih and Naveen Kumar who will be registering themselves in few days team. The 6 players who are in the National Team camp will get their registration done after they return from the Indian camp.