The Hindu : Sport / Football : Calcutta league from today

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Monday, Jul 30, 2007
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Calcutta league from today

KOLKATA: Defending champion East Bengal will kick off the contest for local supremacy as the feature events of the Calcutta Football League’s Premier Division gets underway here on Monday. The two other local giants — Mohammedan Sporting and last year’s runner-up Mohun Bagan — will start their campaigns over the next two days.

The new season is significant for the club sides with a national standing. With the inaugural professional league scheduled to start at the end of September, both Mohun Bagan and East Bengal, the only two elite division NFL representatives from the city, would be looking to fine tune their arsenal in preparation for the greater challenges ahead.

Interestingly, the contest between the traditional rivals will also be seeing a new high with the two sides raiding each other’s camps in a pre-season poaching operation. Mohun Bagan has picked up East Bengal’s Brazilian coach Carlos Roberto Pereira while East Bengal has lassoed in former Mohun Bagan player and coach Subrata Bhattacharya for the new season.

In an effort to professionalise their functioning, Mohun Bagan has taken the lead among all the national clubs by announcing a new club mascot — a royal bengal tiger named ‘Baggu’. The fourth team in contention — Chirag United SC — is a relatively new outfit. The team has drawn up a fairly good roster under the supervision of another former player and Mohun Bagan coach Biswajit Bhattacharya. — Principal Correspondent

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