As many Indian football fans were gearing up last weekend for a nail-biter of an El Clasico, something which probably most of us would have missed out on was another nail-biter of a match being played in the north-eastern hills of Aizawl, Mizoram, where Aizawl Football Club took on the mighty Mohun Bagan.
Mohun Bagan are the most decorated Indian club with a 127-year-old history and 248 trophies adorning their cabinet, therefore, it was all set to be the quintessential David vs Goliath fight with a lot at stake.
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Aizawl FC today stand on the cusp of becoming the Leicester City of the I-league after they miraculously overcame Mohun Bagan on Saturday with a 1-0 scoreline. Central defender Zohmingliana Ralte popped up with a late header (83') that sent them three points clear of the second-placed Bagan with one game left to play.
The Aizawl FC Journey
Aizawl FC’s journey is strikingly similar to the fairytale Leicester City had in the English Premier League (EPL) last season.
Leicester City were a team whose odds to lift the trophy were stacked at 5000/1 at the beginning of the season; a team valued at a minuscule £58m took on richer opponents such as Manchester City (squad cost £411m), Manchester United (squad cost £391m) and Chelsea (squad cost £299m) and outlasted them; a team battling to avoid relegation (ending at 14th) in 2014-15 became the EPL champions in the 2015-16 season.
During the 2015-2016 season, Aizawl won the I-League 2nd Division and earned entry into India's top league as the first ever representatives from the North-Eastern part of India.
In their debut season, they were relegated back to the second tier of Indian football. Relegated in spite of finishing 8th and avoiding the relegation spots!
Relegated! Why?
This was because another club, DSK Shivajians from Pune, the relegated team, enjoyed a-three-year immunity as they came through AIFF's corporate quota.
Aizawl FC responded to this heartbreak with a stellar performance in the Federation Cup as they went on to shock the 2015-16 I-League winners Bengaluru FC in the semis to storm into the finals.
Also read: Despite Aizawl FC's meteoric rise, club fans allegedly subjected to racial abuse across India
Here they succumbed to the eventual champions, Mohun Bagan, by five goals to nil.
But what it did was reinvigorate the spirit of Aizawl. Petitions started filing in as letters were sent to the AIFF, not just from the club but from the governor and chief minister of Mizoram. The entire state of Mizoram was rallying behind the team.
Twist in the tale
Then came the phase where AIFF began mulling over a merger of ISL and I-League which many I-League teams protested against.
In spite of the opposition, AIFF went ahead with the proposition and this resulted in a full-blown war between the Goan clubs and the AIFF and eventually, the Goan clubs – Dempo, Salgaocar and Sporting Clube de Goa – backed out of the I-League for the 2016-17 season.
And with that, the prospect of a lucky return to the top flight resurfaced for Aizawl FC.
The dream run
With the second lowest budget of Rs. 2 Crore for the season along with a rejected manager Khalid Jamil (previously with Mumbai FC), Aizawl FC started to build with the main objective of avoiding relegation, a la Leicester City.
They went with a youth development strategy and a 33-man squad, 23 of them from the North-East region, 3 of them uncapped youngsters.
Aizawl have since ridden on stellar performances like the one on Saturday to get within touching distance of the trophy.
Mahmoud Al Amna, their Syrian midfielder, playing in a more advanced role in the midfield helped control proceedings; Jayesh Rane, one of the three non-Mizos amongst Aizawl’s Indian players, was given the license to run up and down on the wings without worrying about defending; defender Ashutosh Mehta was given the responsibility to shadow Mohun Bagan’s prime Haitian striker Norde, who was worth more than the entire Aizawl squad together.
They built up play in the second half by refusing to give up possession to Bagan and kept many crosses flying into the Kolkata side’s penalty box.
One of the crosses somehow reached Zohmingliana Ralte, who without giving it much thought, leapt over his tall Mohun Bagan counterparts and nodded the ball past an onrushing Debjit Majumdar.
The net bulged and decibel levels soared. Aizawl’s dream lived on. Rather, it got more real.
The ‘12th man’
A visible force behind Aizawl’s dream run has to be the crowd which dutifully thronged the Rajiv Gandhi Stadium, rallying behind them whenever they played at ‘Home’.
The faithful crowd of 11,000 viewers, in the sold-out stadium with a capacity of 7000, standing on the hillocks, withstood the close-to-zero visibility, rain and mist through most of the match on Saturday to celebrate their victory over Mohun Bagan.
This ‘12th man’ might also be a reason for their unbeaten home run but what it’ll all come down to is the final away game against Shillong Lajong next weekend.
With the second-placed Mohun Bagan trailing by 3 points, a single point would be enough for Aizawl FC to become the first team from the North East to lift the I-League title.
Will the fairytale end here?
With the looming merger of I-League and ISL, will Aizawl FC be relegated to the second tier of Indian football once again?
Indians across the country are hoping that AIFF doesn't merge the two leagues. This would mean that the top-tier – all ISL teams plus reputed teams such as Mohun Bagan, East Bengal and Bengaluru FC – will play in a league featuring no promotion and relegation.
The second division will comprise the rest of the I-League teams. If the merger happens, Aizawl will have gone from relegation to champions and back to being relegated once again. They won't have a shot at winning the I-League title again until at least 2024, thanks to the new I-League’s 10-year run.
For now, though, all Indians should bask in the glory of the rise and rise of North East’s contribution to Indian football and Aizawl FC, because it may be many, many years before we see this kind of a fairytale in the top tier of Indian football again.
