5 reasons why Atletico de Kolkata will win the ISL 2016
At the end of the league stages of ISL 2016, Atletico de Kolkata remain as the only side to have made it to the semifinal in all three seasons of the ISL. This year, Atletico finished fourth, leaving them with a semifinal tie against Mumbai City FC.
The 2014 champions will face a stern test as Mumbai have been the strongest side in the competition, and have looked at ease. Consistency was something that Kolkata did show this year, but unfortunately, the consistency was in drawing games, with Jose Molina’s side drawing eight out of their 14 games.
The tie will no doubt be a challenge for Kolkata, and like the first year, when they beat Goa in the semifinal, they will play the first leg at home. Unlike that time when the game happened at Salt Lake Stadium, this will happen at the much smaller Rabindra Sarobar Stadium, which has been Kolkata’s home ground this season.
#1 Big-match experience
Kolkata have played five knockout matches before this and they have lost only one of them. That was a 3-0 loss in the away leg of their semifinal against Chennaiyin FC last year. Even a spirited comeback at home could not prevent Marco Materazzi’s eventual champions from going through.
Kolkata have players with them who have enough experience of being there on the big occasion. Borja Fernandez, Ofentse Nato and Arnab Mondal have been a part of all three campaigns for Kolkata, and Iain Hume did make it to the final in 2014 with Kerala Blasters before making the switch to Kolkata.
In games such as this, the pressure sometimes dictates the performance on the pitch. In many ways, more than the actual performance, it is a team’s ability to handle pressure that dictates the outcome of such games.
For Mumbai, it will be the first knockout game in their history. It will be a new experience for the Mumbai players, even though they do have big-game players like Sunil Chhetri and Diego Forlan in their ranks. But the young Indian players in the Mumbai side would not have experienced this before.
In contrast, for Kolkata, the likes of Arnab Mondal and Pritam Kotal have been part of big occasions before, either in the ISL or with the Indian national team and that should give Kolkata a distinct advantage.