Kibu Vicuna at Mohun Bagan 2019/20 – tactical analysis

I-League 2019/20 had to be suspended with four game-weeks left to play due to Covid-19. However, that did not stop Mohun Bagan from being crowned as the champions of I-League 2019/20 and rightly so. Mohun Bagan were already 16 points ahead of the second-placed, East Bengal, with four games left to play. With Kibu Vicuña at the helm, Mohun Bagan have scored the most number of goals in the campaign, 35 goals in 16 games and conceded just 13 goals from the same number of matches, which led a few sections of Mohun Bagan fan to claim this performance as the most dominating performance in the I-League by any team in a campaign.

Mohun Bagan struggled in the first two matches with a draw and a loss, with the Spanish coach still getting a foothold on the league and his team. The Mariners started to win matches from there on, however, it was the arrival of Baba Diawara, former Sevilla (La Liga) player, that made Mohun Bagan a champion looking team.

With a star striker up top, Vicuña started to weave his magic and played a scintillating brand of football that would be etched in the memory of Indian football fans in years to come.

This tactical analysis would discuss the tactics used by the Mohun Bagan manager and the concepts which made his brand of football tick in India.

Formation and Lineups

4-2-3-1 has been Vicuña’s go-to formation throughout the season, with Baba Diawara up top and Nongdamba Naorem and V.P. Suhair, either side of Joseba Beitia on the flanks. Fran González and SK Sahil operated in the heart of the midfield. The four men shielding the goalkeeper Sankar Roy were Dhanachandra Singh, Daniel Cyrus, Fran Morante and the right-back, Ashutosh Mehta.

However, there were various changes in the personnel throughout the season due to injury and card issues. The major change was that when one of the centre-backs would be missing out, González would drop to the heart of the defence, Beitia would act as the double pivot alongside Sahil, Suhair would play in the hole and Komron Tursunov would occupy the right-wing position.

Without further ado, let’s dive into the concepts of Vicuña’s possession-based football that would be discussed further in the analysis.