New season starts with 131st Durand Cup

Even as FIFA’s ban comes into place, a new football season begins in India today with the 131st iteration of the Durand Cup.

Asia’s oldest football tournament – and the third oldest in the world – starts at Salt Lake stadium here with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee attending the opening ceremony which will precede a match between last year’s finalists, reigning champions FC Goa and Mohammedan Sporting. It could end with President Droupadi Murmu presenting the trophies on September 18, reviving a tradition that stopped when the tournament moved out of New Delhi.

Twenty teams, including all 11 ISL clubs, five from I-League and four from the armed forces, spread over four groups will play in the 47-game competition which will for the first time since it started in 1888 be a multi-venue event with group games also being held in Imphal and Guwahati. All knockout games will be in Kolkata.

Sponsored by Indian Oil, the prize money has been enhanced to ₹60 lakh for the winners and ₹40 lakh for the runners-up, said Lt Gen. KK Repswal, SM, VSM, Chief of Staff, Eastern Command and chairman Durand Organising Committee. It was ₹40 lakh and ₹20 lakh for the first and second teams last year.

Last season six ISL clubs including Mumbai City FC, ATK Mohun Bagan and SC East Bengal, as they were then known, had skipped it. But with an Asian Football Confederation (AFC) mandate that a minimum of 27 games must be played in a season in the country’s top tier, all ISL teams are taking part. A minimum of four games are assured in the Durand Cup which along with a similar number of matches in the Super Cup, supposed to be revived this term after two seasons, and 20 league ties in ISL will help India meet that target.

Like last year, FC Goa are bringing a development squad. They have selected 22 players based on their performance in the Goa Pro League and the Reliance Foundation Development League. “The Durand Cup could be a stepping stone for them to the first team, and I’m hoping they use their chances well,” said coach Deggie Cardozo.

I-League runners-up Mohammedan Sporting too have made a number of new signings and coach Andrey Chernyshov has said he would like to see them in “serious games.” Marcus Joseph, one of the players who has stayed on, said he is confident of bringing the Durand Cup home to the club that was the first Indian team to win it, in 1940.

Also in their group are Bengaluru FC, bolstered by a raft of signings including Roy Krishna, Sandesh Jhingan, Javi Hernandez, Prabir Das, Hira Mondal and Aleksander Jovanovic. With a new coach Simon Grayson and the ever-dependable Sunil Chhetri, Bengaluru FC will start against ISL League Shield winners Jamshedpur FC on Wednesday. Jamshedpur too have signed a clutch of players and renewed deals with others including Nigerian forward Daniel Chima Chukwu who had seven goals and one assist in ISL 2021-22. They too have a new coach in Aidy Boothroyd.

The other group in Kolkata features ATK Mohun Bagan (ATKMB) and East Bengal, who in their earlier avatars have won the Durand Cup 16 times each, the most by any team. ATKMB have partially overhauled their squad releasing Krishna, David Williams, Das and Jhingan among others. While they don’t have a poacher like Krishna, ATKMB have bolstered the inner defence with Florentine Pogba and Brendan Hamill and have signed attacking midfielder Dimitri Petratos. With an array of midfield talent available, coach Juan Ferrando could play Manvir Singh and Kiyan Nassiri as strikers.

East Bengal are again rushing to get a roster ready though not for another edition of ISL. By the time that comes around in October, head coach Stephen Constantine’s team should be in a better state of preparedness than they were in the past two seasons. Again, in a departure from the past two terms, East Bengal have signed three foreigners, Cleiton Silva, Alex Lima and Ivan Gonzalez, with prior ISL experience.

The groups

Group A (Kolkata): FC Goa, Mohammedan Sporting, BFC, JFC, Indian Air Force

Group B (Kolkata): ATK Mohun Bagan, East Bengal, Mumbai City FC, Rajasthan United, Indian Navy

Group C (Imphal): Chennaiyin FC, Hyderabad FC, NEROCA FC, TRAU FC, Army Red

Group D (Guwahati): NorthEast United, Odisha FC, Kerala Blasters, Sudeva Delhi, Army Green

Big numbers

₹60 lakh: Champions’ purse

₹40 lakh: Runners-up

47: Number of games

27: Games in Kolkata including knockout rounds