Mohun Bagan Super Giant midfield maestro Anirudh Thapa is motivated for the next match against Mumbai City FC as his team dominated Bengaluru FC to take home a 4-0 win in the Indian Super League (ISL) at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium on Thursday to set up a dream finale in the race for the League Shield.

The Mariners take on Mumbai City FC on April 15, at the Vivekananda Yuba Bharati Krirangan in Kolkata for their final game of the league stage. A win against the Islanders would hand Mohun Bagan SG their first-ever League Shield.

The 26-year-old was in red-hot form taking the pitch against Bengaluru FC, registering his second goal of the season, converting a low cross from Dimitri Petratos in the 54th minute of the match. Alongside his sleek finish of the night, Thapa further maintained a passing accuracy of 84%, creating three goalscoring chances. On the defensive front, he made a crucial clearance, and an interception, accompanying his four successful tackles. 

The Dehradun-born player, alongside his teammates, is highly motivated knowing that their next match will be at home, with the League Shield at stake. 

“Obviously, the motivation is high because now we have that one chance to win the Shield, especially at our home ground in front of our fans. So, I think that’s something very important to celebrate, to win for, to cheer for. As it will (hopefully) be our maiden League Shield success, so I think we (the Mohun Bagan SG players) all know how important it is,” stated Thapa in an exclusive interview with indiansuperleague.com

Acknowledging the threat that the Islanders pose to Mohun Bagan SG’s League Shield dreams, he added, “Mumbai City FC have been doing incredibly good throughout the season. Not only this, but the previous 3-4 seasons. And we know how important that game will be. So, we all need to be on our toes and give our best to win the Shield.” 

With everything at stake for the Mariners, Thapa concluded by elucidating on how much pressure the players are going through. 

“Pressure is always there. It will be our home crowd, and it could be our first-ever League Shield. So, obviously the pressure is there to perform well, the pressure is there to win the game. Pressure is there because everyone (Mohun Bagan SG fans) is expecting us to win. There will be 60,000 fans, I hope, there will be because they know how important it is. So the pressure is always there. We need to feel that and we need to perform with that,” he shared.

Centre-back Anwar Ali shared the same excitement about facing Mumbai City FC in the final game of the league stage, with the League Shield race being taken down to the wire.

The youngster has been an instrumental figure at the backline for the Mariners, influencing them to their eighth clean sheet of the season, against Bengaluru FC. In his 90 minutes on the field, Ali completed 31 of his 33 attempted passes, registering an exceptional 94% passing accuracy. He further made six significant clearances and an interception to keep his team from conceding any goal.

Sharing his thoughts on their match in Bengaluru, the 23-year-old said, “This game was important for us to go for the League Shield. We have been working hard for the last few days and we did it in this match. Now, we are looking forward to the Mumbai City FC match.”

“We respect Mumbai City FC, but we also play well as we are at the second spot (on the league table), So, we will give a big fight to them to come up to the first place, be at the top in the league and to get the Shield,” he signed off. 

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Mohun Bagan Super GiantBengaluru FCMumbai City FC2023-2024 Anwar AliAnirudh Thapa