Preseason residential conditioning camp ends tomorrow

McDowell Mohun Bagan football team's preseason residential conditioning camp which is currently going on in Durgapur since July 15th will end tomorrow.

Today in the penultimate day of the camp, there was gym session in the morning. The players came in 3 batches and used the gym of Mohun Bagan SAIL Football Academy under the vigilant eyes of Fitness Trainer, Joseph Ronald D'Argus.

Initially, the players were asked to make few rounds of jogging around the ground, inside the Academy Campus. This was followed by some stretching exercise and lastly the players went to the gym.

In between, there was a fun game which was won by Warundeep Singh and Manish Maithani. Earlier when this game was played in Mohun Bagan ground, Nirmal Chhetri had won it but today he lost to Warundeep Singh in the last lap.

The afternoon practice session was held at the Shahid Bhagat Singh Stadium. There was a lot of variety noticed in today's training session which started with some practice of passing the ball. Then there was a 1:1 game where one player had to dribble past his opponent to score a goal. When Rakesh Masih scored a goal past Warundeep Singh by taking a shot from few yards out, coach explained to him that he will have to score by dribbling past his opponent and then carrying the ball towards the goal.

During all the passing drills, whenever any player made any mistake, coach Santosh Kashyap immediately interrupted and rectified his error. He also showed the players how to get past opponent defence and also demonstrated few skills of covering and tackling and not allowing opponent players to easily move past him while attacking.

Then there was a 5 against 5 match followed by a 11-a-side game. During the match, Chief Coach was not only instructing the 1st team players but also pointed out the mistakes made by the 2nd team boys eg. When today's 1st team goalkeeper Shilton Paul passed the ball towards left back Lalrozama Fanai, 2nd team right half Manish Bharghav was standing and allowed Fanai to control the ball. Coach explained to Manish and asked him to charge immediately when Shilton threw the ball towards Fanai.

The players really seemed to enjoy the game which the 1st team won by a solitary goal. With only goalkeeper Naveen Kumar to beat, Sabeeth's push deflected off the post and went to Stanley whose attempt hit the hands of Deepak and Santosh Kashyap blew the whistle at once. Though Naveen Kumar dived in the right direction, Fanai's brilliant left footed penalty kick hit the top corner of the net.

Anyichie Echezona had a relatively good game and made few good clearances by header and also once nicely cleared the ball by fully stretching his leg. However, he made 1 mistake when he committed a foul just outside the penalty box, though Dipendu's brilliantly taken direct free kick narrowly went over the target.

Stanley Okoroigwe, who played in striker today along with Sabeeth, had a good match. He seems to possess good speed and also showed good skills as few times he nicely dodged past the opponent defenders with ease, but we will have to see how Stanley plays in central midfield where he will also need to display some defensive skills like snatching, blocking etc. though his ex-coach "Chima" (while in New Delhi Heroes) is very excited about Stanley and last month said that he is an asset to any team with his great all-round football skills.

The 2nd team almost equalized minutes before the end of the match but once Shilton made a stunning save diving to his left and then from Rajib Ghosh's pass, Arjun Chatterjee was guilty of missing a easy chance.

Goalkeeper coach Hemanta Dora continued to separately train the 4 goalkeepers. He is very impressed with the standard of the goalkeepers in McDowell Mohun Bagan this year.

After a morning practice session tomorrow, McDowell Mohun Bagan will return to Kolkata. The whole team will be present during the Mohun Bagan Day celebration on 29th July to be held at the Netaji Indoor Stadium.

Next week, team might play a couple of friendly matches before they take part in the 1st tournament of the season - All Airlines Gold Cup.