Mohun Bagan appointed its former player and assistant coach Satyajit Chatterjee for the job an hour after announcing the termination of Bencherifa. Chatterjee has been given charge of the team for the next four months, that is, till the end of the current season.
Bencherifa, who had joined Mohun Bagan from Churchill Brothers amidst fanfare in March 2008, said it was a mutual decision “to part ways after having analysed together the situation of the club.”
Unusual scene
In an unusual scene the departing coach and the Mohun Bagan secretary, Anjan Mitra, along with the club treasurer Debashish Dutta held a joint news conference to announce the decision, which the club officials explained was forced by the “rising expectations of the club supporters.”
Unlike in the previous occasions when the coaches were unceremoniously dumped, the club officials chose to be different with Bencherifa and praised him for bringing a lot of success to the team in the last season (where the club won three titles and became the runner-up thrice). “We are unable to retain him as the supporters are eager to see a repetition of last year’s success, which he has not been able to produce this time,” Mitra said denying reports of a players’ mutiny against the coach.
“We are just six points away from the leader and three points off the second placed side at the half-way stage of the I-League. Which means we are still in a position to win the title,” said the Moroccan coach while evaluating the team’s performance this season.
“Ours was a like a dream team but recurrent injuries to a lot of key players prevented me from fielding the best combination in any match,” Bencherifa said.
He added that he would take a few days’ rest before making his next move.