Top five achievements of Karim Bencherifa in Indian football

Pune FC have appointed the highly-successful Karim Bencherifa as their new head coach with the hope of moving forward both on and off the field under the Moroccan. Bencherifa, who has signed a two-year contract with the Red Lizards, has won almost every domestic trophy in Indian football and will be aiming to land Pune’s first-ever silverware.

Ahead of his new challenge with Pune, Sportskeeda lists the former Mohun Bagan coach’s top five achievements.

5. MB’s escape from relegation in 2nd spell

When Karim Bencherifa took charge of Mohun Bagan for the second time in November 2012 the club was in crisis as they went trophyless for two seasons and didn’t have a squad good enough to challenge for the title. The situation got worse a month later as Mohun Bagan refused to take the field in the second half of a derby clash with East Bengal citing safety issues. The green-and-maroon brigade were initially relegated from the I-League but later were spared with a 12-point deduction. As a result they had zero points from 10 matches and Bencherifa had his work cut out to avoid the drop. The Moroccan didn’t panic though and started getting the best out of an average squad. Eventually the Mariners survived easily with 29 points from their final 16 games. It wasn’t Bencherifa’s best season but only he could have saved Mohun Bagan from that hopeless situation.