East Bengal beat Mohun Bagan in Australia fans' derby

KOLKATA: East Bengal came out in flying colours in the fans football tournament played by the Bengali diaspora in Australia, beating Mohan Bagan in all the categories.

The age-old rivalry was renewed in Sydney’s Grandville Centre on Saturday afternoon as eight teams, including Baichung Bhutua XI and Krishanu Dey XI, Chuni Goswami XI and Satyajit Chatter XI, fought it out for the coveted trophy.

The final was played between Baichung Bhutia XI and Chuni Goswami XI where East Bengal defeated Mohon Bagan 1-0 in a regulation match to lift the IFA Shield Australia 2023. The East Bengal women’s and kids’ teams also won. “The IFA Shield Australia, started last year, is now clearly one of the biggest subcontinent sporting tournaments in Australia. We also had the women and kids’ matches to make this a complete family event,” said committee member Judhyajit Choudhuri. “The men’s final played between Baiching Bhutia XI and Chuni Goswami XI saw East Bengal win 1-0. The women’s championship was won by East Bengal scoring 2 and Mohun Bagan finishing at 1. In the children’s category, East Bengal won 2-0,” he said. “We want to specially thank all those who took out time from their busy schedules to support us,” Choudhuri said.

Among those who participated in the event were MP Jason Li, NSW sports minister Julia Finn, MP Charisma Kaliyanda and Sanjay Muluka of the Indian Consulate.

“Last year it was Mohun Bagan that beat East Bengal in the fans’ derby,” said another committee member Subasish Das. Among those who were present to cheer the lively encounter among teams formed by the Indian expat community in Sydney on Saturday were Arpan Mazumder, Sayan Raha, Debdeep Panigrahi, Souveek Halder and Avishek Mitra.

Talking about the Kolkata Maidan football fever that went Down Under last year, Anirban Mukhopadhyay of Heritage Bengal Global, a non-profit organisation of the Bengali community in Britain that organizes the same fans’ football tournament in the UK, said, “This is the non-resident Bengali’s way of introducing the Bangal-Ghoti fun-filled war to the third generation Bengalis living in different parts of the world.”