East Bengal vs Mohun Bagan: Kolkata Derby to kick off 135th IndianOil Durand Cup

East Bengal and Mohun Bagan Super Giant will launch the 135th IndianOil Durand Cup with a blockbuster Kolkata Derby at the Vivekananda Yuba Bharati Krirangan. The rivals, with 33 combined Durand titles, begin another chapter in Indian football's most celebrated rivalry

Hyderabad: East Bengal FC will take on Mohun Bagan Super Giant in the Kolkata Derby on Saturday as the two Kolkata giants open the 135th IndianOil Durand Cup at the Vivekananda Yuba Bharati Krirangan.

Asia’s oldest football tournament could not have picked a bigger fixture to mark the occasion, handing its very first whistle of the season to the rivalry that defines Indian club football.

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The Mariners walk into the tournament as its most decorated club, 17 Durand Cup titles deep, a tally no one else in the competition’s long life has matched. The Red and Gold Brigade trail by the width of a single trophy, 16 to their name, close enough that every fresh meeting between the two feels like a chance to close the gap or stretch it.

The two sides have met more than 20 times in the tournament, East Bengal holding a narrow edge, and contested a dozen Durand Cup finals between them, the most recent in 2004, with East Bengal winning six to Mohun Bagan’s four and two shared. It was in this very fixture, in 2023, that the record champions finally broke a 23-year wait for the trophy, beating their old rivals 1-0 in the final to claim that 17th title. Few rivalries anywhere carry quite this kind of built-in tension.

Midfielder Jeakson Singh Thounaojam, part of that title-winning group, put it plainly when asked about the mood in camp under new head coach Antonio Lopez Habas and said, “We are getting together as a family, and at the end of last season we achieved our objective. I’m really looking forward to this new season, to achieve the same objective with more determination,” he said.

Mohun Bagan Super Giant begin life under Panagiotis Dilmperis, the Greek coach who spent two seasons quietly excellent at Punjab FC before the Mariners came calling, and who now inherits a squad several notches richer than the one he left behind, headlined by the arrival of Miguel Figueira Damasceno.