All eyes will be on the ATK Mohun Bagan dugout in the 37th league match of the Hero Indian Super League (ISL) 2021-22 when the Indian football champion takes on NorthEast United at the Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Fatorda on Tuesday. In this football match, Bagan will not be accompanied by head coach Antonio López Habas. ATK Mohun Bagan decided to part ways with their head coach Habas on Saturday after a four-match winless win.
This is Bagan’s longest unwanted campaign to stay away from victory in the ISL. ATKMB is seventh in the table with eight points from six matches. Habas won ISL titles in 2014 and 2019-20 with the then club ATK. He became the first manager to win the title twice.
Interim coach Manuel Pérez-Cascallana said, “Now that the players are the main drivers of the campaign in the season, the responsibility now lies with them because they don’t have a coach. If you lose, you can’t blame the coach or the strategy. Players need to step up and grab their moment. Now the only objective should be to win three points.” Assistant coach Bastab Roy doesn’t think the current managerial situation will affect the team’s performance. “The players are professionals. The only aim will be to play well and win matches,” Roy said.
On the eve of the match, ATKMB coach Khalid Jamil said, “They have a good team but we are only thinking about ourselves. We did some good work in our last game and we need to keep that up. The players are in a positive mindset and trying to keep the momentum going. It is only through hard work that we can achieve what we want in the game.”