Newly crowned Indian Super League (ISL) champions ATK Mohun Bagan will be renamed as Mohun Bagan Super Giants from the 2023-24 season. The official announcement of the same was made by the club owner Sanjeev Goenka after The Mariners beat Bengaluru FC in the penalty shootout in the final at the Fatorda Stadium on Saturday to clinch their maiden title.
“We were waiting on the cards. We were waiting for the [ISL final] win to announce it,” Goenka announced after the historic win.
It is pertinent to note that Mohun Bagan had entered the Indian Super League after their merger with ATK as ATK Mohun Bagan in the 2020-21 season of the league. However, not all fans were impressed with some of the club's loyal supporters objecting to the ATK prefix in the team name which will now be removed.
Interestingly, Goenka owned Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise is also called Lucknow Super Giants which will begin its campaign this season on April 1 against Delhi Capitals. Lucknow Super Giants participated in the IPL for the first time last year and ended up reachin the Playoffs were lost the Eliminator against Royal Challengers Bangalore.
As far as the ISL final is concerned, in a match that swayed one way and the other, it was Dimitri Petratos who opened the scored for ATKMB and put them in the lead before BFC's Sunil Chhetri scored in the final kick of the first half to equalise the match. Both the first half goals came from spot kicks.
In the second half of the ISL Final, Bengaluru FC took the lead with the help of a field goal from Roy Krishna but once again there was a twist in the tale with Petratos scoring from the spot for the second time in the match this time in the 85th minute to ensure that the match goes into extra time.
Eventually, ATKMB beat BFC 4-3 on penalties to emerge as the champion.