Mohun Bagan. ISL League Shield Champions. Dimi Petratos with the title-winning goal. A dominant, inevitable winning machine.
All acceptable platitudes after Mohun Bagan defeated Odisha FC with a last-gasp goal to win the 2024/25 Indian Super League title on Sunday -- except those were words from last year. Somehow, incredibly, the most winning-est club in Indian football history decided to up the ante and perfect their winning formula.
Dimi Petratos, their talisman from last season, came on as a substitute. Read that again. A substitute. Dimi Petratos. The most clutch ISL player ever. Substitute. In a title-winning clash.
The result? Petratos did what he does, the moment of magic emanating from his left-foot with a 93rd-minute turn and strike from range, and Bagan defeated 10-man Odisha to confirm their title, 52 points now beyond Goa's reach. And they did it in historic fashion - as Bagan became the first-ever team in ISL history to defend the league shield title.
How did they get there?
It started, in typical maidan fashion, by letting go of their coach. As much as the club couched it as 'health reasons' for parting with the most successful manager in ISL history -- Antonio Habas -- his subsequent spell in charge of I-League club Inter Kashi proved otherwise.
There were rusted parts in the Bagan winning machine last year, as evidenced by the loss to Mumbai City FC in the 2023/24 ISL final.
And thus, the Bagan management brought back another ISL-winning coach from their ATK past - Jose Molina. The Spaniard came in and applied his magic oil to all of Bagan's rusted parts and fashioned a side that's close to perfect.
Consider the records they've broken this season:
First team in ISL history to breach the 50-point mark.
Most-ever wins in a season (16 and counting.)
Most home wins in a season (9 and counting.)
Most set-piece goals in a season (20 and counting.)
Most clean sheets in a season (14 and counting.)
First team ever to keep six clean sheets in a row.
It didn't all go smoothly at the start however - Bagan were dealing with a controversial transfer of first-choice centre-back, Anwar Ali to rivals East Bengal, and a defence that had a concerning habit of giving up leads --] which even saw them lose the Durand Cup final. The departures of Joni Kauko and Brendan Hamill looked costly initially, especially after a 0-3 loss to Bengaluru FC early on. A season's worth of fine-tuning under Molina though, and Ali, Kauko and Hamill's departure is merely a footnote, and Bagan boast of the best defence in India - by far.
The raw numbers are frankly ridiculous - reducing the number of goals the champions conceded by 46% is unheard of. For comparison, Arsenal had the best defence in England last year (29 goals conceded), and a similar reduction would have seen them concede 13 goals in 38 games -- which would be a Premier League record (they've conceded 23 in 26 games so far).
Subhasish Bose, Alberto Rodriguez and Tom Aldred have been key cogs of a miserly backline that has snuffed out the best of ISL attacks, but what Molina has added to the mix is their utility as set-piece goalscoring threats. For a while, Bose was the top-scoring Indian in the league, and has already achieved the feat of most goals by a defender in an ISL season (6), with Rodriguez equalling the previous record of five. The pair have accounted for a quarter of Bagan's goals this season - which is saying something given their attacking riches.
Liston Colaco, Jason Cummings, Greg Stewart have all chipped in with brilliant moments when called upon. Jamie MacLaren has been patient and eventually turned into the X-Factor for this side. The Australian scored match-winning goals in six games and Bagan have won each of the eight games he's scored in. And yet, it was about Dimi Petratos and his magic dust, once more.
It became a familiar theme for the season -- Molina had kept things simple for his side. Concede less, score via magic from a forward, win games. A simple formula, as he said before the game, saying "We have to do the same thing we have been doing from the beginning -- work hard, defend, attack, and stay united as a team, attacking and defending together, trying to concede as few goals as possible, trying to score as many goals as possible, and finally, try to win and get the three points."
That platform, and Vishal Kaith's transformation into the best goalkeeper in the land meant Bagan's forwards always had the freedom to keep taking high-risk high-reward options time after time. Inevitably, 90 (and more) minutes in, one of their multitude of difference makers would get it right.
Dimi Petratos did get it right for Bagan tonight, and Bagan got it right all season. And that's why they are champions. Perfect champions.