Five reasons why Mohun Bagan failed in AFC Cup 2023-24

The Mariners finished third in group stage behind Odisha FC & Bashundhara Kings.

Towards the beginning of the 2023-24 season, the message from the Mohun Bagan Super Giant camp was clear – we have to strongly challenge in the AFC Cup. The Mariners decided to spend big bucks to rope in quality foreigners like Jason Cummings and Hector Yuste to bolster their already strong team.

Not to stop there, even seasoned India internationals like Sahal Abdul Samad, Anirudh Thapa and Anwar Ali were all brought in to create a team of superstars. The Mariners’ owner Sanjeev Goenka gave these presents to the fans in the hope that the team would be strong enough to go far into the AFC Cup, with Indian teams normally succumbing in the knockout stages.

However, fast-forward a few months and now Mohun Bagan are knocked out of the tournament from the group stages itself. This is rather embarrassing for a team that was considerably the most valuable in Group D and, at least on paper, had a way stronger side than any of their opponents.  Here we look at five reasons why they failed in the 2023-24 AFC Cup.

5. Injury troubles

Due to the quality of their squad, Mohun Bagan SG have overwhelming expectations to dominate teams in every competition. The players are expected to perform at their best in every game and that has taken a toll on some of them. The Mariners struggled through injury issues in their AFC Cup group campaign, especially from the third game onward.

They lost Anwar Ali to an injury in the 2-2 draw against Bashundhara Kings, which proved to be a huge miss. After that, Manvir Singh and Dimitri Petratos suffered injuries too – impacting them in the final few group games. This had an ill effect on their momentum and general performance-level, causing them to dip at the worst time towards the end of the group stages.

4. Failure to convert key chances

Mohun Bagan started their AFC Cup group campaign in exceptional fashion, picking up a huge 4-0 win away from home against Odisha FC. That seemingly set up what seemed to be a dominant group stage for them, but their performances significantly dipped thereafter. It almost seemed like the Mariners’ had reserved their most clinical performance for the first game. In almost every single of their next four matches, they missed a lot of big chances.

This included failing to convert from close range or players failing to finish off well-worked moves. Mohun Bagan were unable to finish off games against Bashundhara when it mattered and their missed chances ended up coming back to haunt them in the end.

3. Inability to hold onto leads

The Mariners might’ve sailed to a big win in their first group game, but couldn’t show enough character when it mattered. The players clearly got nervous when put under strong pressure and couldn’t thrive under the continental competition at all. The Mariners almost drew their home game against Maziya S&RC after seeing their lead cut out, before Jason Cummings scored a late winner.

They took a lead in both games against Bashundhara but were unable to hold onto them and succumbed under pressure after going into a defensive shell. Mohun Bagan also took the lead in the home game against Odisha, but silly mistakes allowed the Juggernauts to get a big win. Their backline’s inability to hold together a strong enough defensive shape to scratch out narrow wins cost them and the inability to build on their leads didn’t help either.

2. Complacency

A lot of questions probably wandered over the Mariners’ fanbase over what exactly caused their downfall in the AFC Cup group stages after winning the first two games. A possible answer would be that the players might’ve grown complacent.

After winning the Durand Cup and dominating their way to win almost all their matches in the first few months of the campaign, the Mohun Bagan squad was purring with confidence. But perhaps a sense of complacency also set in among some players, who felt that they would have it as easy in the last four group games as they did in their first two.

They probably felt that the squad was too overwhelmingly strong for their opponents and could easily stroll to victories without having to hit top gear. That cost them in the two games against Bashundhara, who sprung a number of surprises and proved to be much stronger than last year’s AFC Cup campaign. The Mariners’ hit panic mode against Odisha and were ultimately made to pay for trying to treat the AFC Cup games like a normal ISL game.

1. New foreigners failing to deliver

The reason behind Mohun Bagan spending so much money in signing quality new foreign players to add to their squad was in hopes that they would power them to continental success. Ultimately, that did not happen. The foreign players failed to really inspire the team with their experience or expertise and ended up letting them down when it really mattered. Cummings might’ve scored in the first few games, but failed to deliver in the key matches against Bashundhara or the home clash against Odisha.

He looked too adamant at dropping down to create chances, which he couldn’t do much either. Mohun Bagan badly missed his finishing prowess in the final third, while Armando Sadiku was also a frustrating one to watch in the AFC Cup.

Hector Yuste was given nightmares by Bashundhara Kings’ forward and embarrassed at home by Odisha, failing to hold a strong enough backline with Brendan Hamill. With the AFC Cup allowing five foreign players, Mohun Bagan’s gamble to stack their squad with experienced foreigners didn’t work out as they failed to come up big when it mattered.

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