Odisha FC was formed after Delhi Dynamos shifted their home to Bhubaneswar after a continuous poor attendance at the Jawaharlal Neheru Stadium, New Delhi. The club was franchised by the Government Of Odisha and they set Kalinga Stadium as their home, that had a capacity of 15,000. Kalinga was the home for Indian Arrows for iLeague season 2018-19 and was organising Hero Super Cup from last 2 seasons.
With a 26 members squad led by Spanish midfielder Marcos Tebar and managed by former FC Barcelona youth team coach Josep Gombau, OFC started their season with a 1-2 disappointment from Jamshedpur FC on 22nd October 2019. The disappointment followed in the next away game against Northeast United, with the same scoreline again. Adriane Santana scored in the 1st game and Xisco Hernandez in the 2nd. OFC tasted their 1st victory on 31st October at the Mumbai Football Arena, when they thrashed the home side 4-2, with Santana scoring a double and other two goals came from Xisco and Jerry. This victory took them to the 6th position in the table, which they held for next 4 matchdays.
After going all square for 3 consecutive games against Kerala, ATK (both 0-0) and Chennaiyin (2-2), Odisha faced another loss against Bengaluru, when they let Juanan past the goalee on the 37th minute and could not overtake BFC’s defence throughout the game. The defeat sent them to 7th and even after a 3-2 win against their contemporary Hyderabad FC, they fell one more position.
The next game at the Fatorda Stadium against table toppers FC Goa saw a miserable performance at the defence line, where the home team found the net thrice compared to nil by OFC. For the first time Gombau’s 4-2-3-1 was a terrible failure and was criticised widely. However in the next home game against Jamshedpur, Odisha did a comeback with Adriane Santana scoring twice within the first half. OFC won the game 2-1 and again it was not a clean sheet even for Dorronsoro. With this victory Odisha climbed up to 5th and after 2-0 win against Chennaiyin FC, they were for the first time in the top 4 when Jerry and Vinit were the scorers while 6,382 home supporters watched the match at the Kalinga.
Odisha stayed strong at the 4th position for the next 4 matchdays where they defeated Mumbai (2-0) and Hyderabad (2-1), with Adriane Santana scoring 3 goals and Xisco scoring one. The next match against Bengaluru on 22nd January was a double loss for the club as they saw a 0-3 defeat from the home side that risked their 4th spot and their talisman, joint 2nd top scorer of the league Adriane Santana, faced a serious injury at the 35th minute from a foul tackle by Harmanjot Khabra, that ruled him out for the test of the season. Odisha loaned in Manuel Onwu from Bengaluru FC as a replacement and he scored remarkable 7 goals from his next 4 games for the club.
Onwu debuted before 7,463 home audiences on 29th January where his two goals were not enough to cover up Odisha’s loopholes in defence. OFC faced a 2-4 defeat from Goa, that sent them back to the 6th spot in the table. The next game at the Salt Lake gave Odisha another blow, where Roy Krishna scored a hattrick against Dorronsoro. After the substitution of the goalee at the 69th minute, Arshdeep Singh maintained the nets clean for the rest of the game, which was not enough and Odisha FC were 1-3 down by ATK.
The last victory of the season came on 14th February, with Onwu and Guedes scoring but Arshdeep Singh couldn’t keep a cleansheet and the scoreline was 2-1. Match no. 18 was a roller coaster between Odisha and Kerala, that ended up all square at 4-4 but Onwu came out on the top with a hattrick. The new 3-4-3 was impressive from attacking point of view but the defence was a failure as always. One point was enough to lift the club in the table and Odisha FC ended the season at 6th spot. The season might have been new for Odisha FC but the league was nothing new for the players or the manager. We must admit the attack was better as they scored 28 goals this season as compared to 23 from the previous one.
However the defence was a headache especially during the last few games as they conceded 31 goals and keeping the goal difference in negative is definitely not acceptable for a top tier club of the country. Talking about the defence, Subham Sarangi was brilliant at the right back but he is the only right back in the squad. For the next season, the club must eye towards signing another RB and promising Indian talent Rahul Bheke will be a good option. Gourav Bora, Carlos Delgado and Amit Tudu failed to impress as centre backs.
The club can think of a transfer for veteran John Johnson from ATK and selling Tudu and Delgado. Narayan Das was impressive at the Left Back but he was seen out of fitness at times, which must be taken care of. Midfield was quite good including aces like captain Tebar and Xisco. Tebar and Diagne were doing well at CDM but there was a competition for a place between Vinit Rai and Bikramjeet Singh. So the club must think of a transfer for Singh, to maintain balance.
Xisco has always been unquestionable regarding his performance and along with Martin Perez Guedes he can provide key passes and assists. Chhangte can be considered as a good substitution both for attacking and defensive midfield. Attack was quite good except for first few matches. With Santana recovering the club should consider a full time transfer of Onwu. Both of them are Center forwards but Santana can play as an attacking midfielder because he has experience from spanish segunda division club Deportiva Leonesa.
Jerry has the speed and is a potential choice for the left wing but we should admit that none of the right wingers played by the club; left an impression. Odisha should eye for a move of Arnold Issoko, Soosairaj or Jobby Justin for Right flank. Now talking about the main loophole, that was goalkeeping. Neither Arshdeep nor Dorronsoro were seen at full potential. The club must try a move for Shilton Paul from Mohun Bagan A. C. or Prabhusukhan Singh Gill from Bengaluru FC.
The manager’s post is vacant after the club parted ways with Gombau. Now Odisha can eye for some UEFA Pro liscence holder managers like Sergio Lobera, who has been recently sacked by Goa or Kibu Vicuna who might lose his job after Mohun Bagan merges with ATK and keeps Habas as head coach. The managerial team seems in good shape but changes can be done according to the choices of the new head coach. The club is doing well in grass root development of football across the state, which they must make more vigorous in order to discover local talents like Subham Sarangi and Ankit Bhuyan. Keeping all the statistics aside, one thing can be concluded- the performance of the club for the next season will depend upon how they are marketing in this transfer window.
© Abinash Sahu
The Corner Taken 