East Bengal 4–1 Mohun Bagan

The Kolkata Derby is a fixture contested between two football teams from the Kolkata region, Mohun Bagan and East Bengal. Due to historical and cultural factors common to both teams, massive fanbase, and records of successes over decades, the derby had been very popular and closely followed by fans and covered by media, and hence were the two most popular and successful Indian football clubs- East Bengal and Mohun Bagan. Before this fixture, there had been 15 meetings between the two sides in Federation Cups, with the first fixture being held in 1978. In the 15 games played, East Bengal had won four, Mohun Bagan three and eight games ended in draws.[5]

Coaches of Mohun Bagan and East Bengal Amal Dutta and Pradip Kumar Banerjee had seen success as players, and then as coaches from the 1970s well into the 1990s. As coach, Dutta had been known as a 'purist', a 'tactician' and an 'innovator'. Consequently, he had the reputation of winning games with young and lesser known players.[2] His team Mohun Bagan entered the tournament defeating Punjab Police, the winners of North Zone qualifying round, 4–3 in penalties that followed a 1–1 draw on field, in the round of 16, before meeting Churchill Brothers in the quarter-final. Against them he employed the 3–2–3–2 'diamond' formation, a formation that he had introduced in the same year.[6] The formation had seven players often attacking at the same time; Debjit Ghosh was played as a defensive screen while Basudeb Mondal was played as a deep-lying playmaker. Amit Das played just behind Chima Okorie while Abdul Khalique started on the wings and drifted in as the match progressed. With this formation, his team had pulverised Churchill Brothers, beating them 6–0.[6] Dutta had also come to be known for his provocation and trash talk before matches, and before this game had mocked East Bengal's striker Bhutia as "Chung Chung" and dismissed defender Sammy Omollo saying, "I will eat him like an omelette".[7]

The coach of East Bengal, Banerjee, had the reputation as a pragmatist and was known for playing easily adaptable football with popular players to win games, much unlike Dutta. Known for his defensive tactics, which he called the Italian Catenaccio style of play, he regularly fielded 4–3–3 and 4–5–1 formations.[8][6] He also came to be known for his inspirational pep talk to players termed as "vocal tonic" before games.[9] His team entered the tournament as defending champions and met winners of the South Zone qualifying round, Integral Couch Factory, in the Round of 16. Defeating them 3–0, they met Mohammedan in the quarter-final, who they beat 4–0, to enter the semi-final.[10]

In the fortnight before the game, although East Bengal were yet to beat Mohammedan in the quarter-final on 6 July to earn the right to play Mohun Bagan next, Dutta, and his counterpart, Banerjee, made statements about tactics their teams would adopt for the game. Rediff.com reported: "The atmosphere grew more and more tense as the match day approached. Tickets were sold in black, though the police did its best to dissuade fans from dealing with touts."[4] The derby always drew unprecedented crowds whenever and wherever played, and there had been many instances of violence in the past involving players, team officials and supporters. This led to Dutta appealing for a foreign referee to supervise the game and eventually a FIFA referee, Inayatullah Khan, was called in.[4]

East Bengal's Bhaichung Bhutia, whose hat-trick helped his team win the match.

A record crowd of 131,781 had turned up for the game, over and above the hitherto official seating capacity of 120,000.[4] On the afternoon marked by hot and humid weather conditions, Banerjee made two tactical changes just before the game began. He replaced the defenders, veteran Ilyas Pasha and rookie Falguni Dutta, with the energetic pair of Dulal Biswas and Amitava Chanda. In what was a calculated gamble, he played Haggi Azande Abulista as the goalkeeper, who previously had never played a game of such magnitude.[2] He fielded the 4–4–2 formation to counter Dutta's 3–2–3–2. Another source cites that Dutta employed the 3–4–3 diamond formation.[11]

Details

13 July 1997

East Bengal	4–1	Mohun Bagan
Haque 25' Bhutia 46', 85', 88'	Report	Okorie 66'

Salt Lake Stadium, Kolkata

Attendance: 131,781

Referee: Inayatullah Khan (Karnataka)

East Bengal

Mohun Bagan

GK 1 Haggi Azande Abulista RB 12 Dulal Biswas (c)  71' CB 4 Sammy Omollo CB 2 Naushad Moosa LB 5 Amitava Chanda CM 16 Shankarlal Chakraborty MF 18 Tushar Rakshit MF 8 Somatai Saiza  67' RW 23 Nazim-ul-Haque MF 14 Abdul Sadiqe  77' CF 15 Bhaichung Bhutia Substitutes: GK 22 Kalyan Chaubey FW 6 Shamsi Reza  67' DF Ilyas Pasha DF 20 Phalguni Dutta  71' Coach: Pradip Kumar Banerjee

GK 21 Hemanta Dora LB 23 James Odhiambo CB 3 Aloke Das (c) CB 16 Ranjan Dey DF 4 Debjit Ghosh MF 14 Basudeb Mondal CM 24 Satyajit Chatterjee LW 19 Lolendra Singh  70' MF 8 Amit Das ST 22 Chima Okorie ST 11 Abdul Khalique Substitutes: MF 7 Soumitra Chakraborty  70' Coach: Amal Dutta

Man of the match Bhaichung Bhutia (East Bengal) Match officials Assistant referees: Michael Andrews (Kerala) R. D. Sow (Madhya Pradesh)

Match rules 90 minutes. 30 minutes of extra time if necessary. Penalty shoot-out if scores still level.

The match took place on the back of dwindling numbers of supporters at games in Kolkata and the press writing football off among Indians in terms of interest. However, the impact this game had had, was described by India Today thus: "A city and a sport rediscovered each other and Calcutta and soccer were locked again in a bizarre tango" and added, "It was the '60s and '70s revisited: it was mayhem, it was stirring."[8] The author also writes about how management of Mohun Bagan went for a more "telegenic" design of their team's jersey giving up a 119-year-old tradition of wearing "dull jerseys", upon the request of ESPN, whose subsidiary television channel Star Sports telecast the game.[8] The game was also telecast live by Doordarshan, the government funded broadcaster, which was significant in that, the only sport of which games was telecast live was cricket, owing to its popularity in the country.[13]

Speaking of the game, Bhutia said, "It was a great feeling to score a hat-trick on such a big occasion and it's true that it gave me a lot of media attention but I had to work even harder after that. For me you are only as good as your last game so I had to start from scratch again from the next match."[14] Despite the failure of his 'diamond' formation in the game, Dutta, however, went on with it, and was able to exact "revenge" in a replay of the match within a month, when his team beat East Bengal 1–0 at the final of the Calcutta Football League.[7]