Aizawl’s attacking football suits Mumbai boys Mehta & Rane
amidst the clamour of Aizawl FC’S fairy-tale I-league campaign have been the quiet contributions of two Mumbai lads who left behind family and hometown to faithfully follow their coach into the unknown.
Ashutosh Mehta and Jayesh Rane had only ever played for Mumbai FC in the I-league before. But a word of confidence from coach Khalid Jamil after years of trusting them on the field was all it took for the two Mumbai boys to follow their coach to the Mizoram club.
Jamil left Mumbai FC at the start of the 2016-17 season to become head coach of Aizawl FC.
And Ashutosh and Jayesh — who Jamil had trusted for several campaigns and handpicked from Mumbai FC’S youth team to give I-league debuts in 2011 and 2012 respectively — joined their coach at Aizawl without a second thought. “We knew nothing about Aizawl. It was just the word of the coach in the begin
With one game to go before the I-league season ends, Aizawl are a point away from clinching the title, a dramatic turnaround after being on the brink of relegation last season.
When they set off for the journey to North East, repaying Jamil’s faith was on top of both players mind while Jayesh only wanted a guarantee of playing time. Now, with just a game to go, Jayesh feels that the sacrifice of leaving his family in Mumbai and adjusting to life in Mizoram has paid off. “This has been the best season so far for me in the that I have ever been awarded man of the match; I picked up two man of the match awards,” Jayesh said.
Jamil had always been labelled as a tactically defensive coach. However, Ashutosh and Jayesh, feel that is an incorrect appropriation. “I think he works according to the players that he In Mumbai, he had more defensive players. Here he has more ball-playing players and more attacking players,” Ashutosh said. “That’s the reason he called Jayesh and me to play in Aizawl, because we are both attack