With Bengaluru FC becoming the first Indian club to reach the AFC Cup final, we look back at Indian club's best wins in international competitions.
Mohun Bagan beat Yorkshire Regiment to win the 1911 IFA Shield
When ESPN compiled a shortlist of the top 20 moments of Indian sport earlier this year, one moment that narrowly missed out from the 30 moments that were sent to our panellists was Mohun Bagan's epochal IFA Shield final victory against the East Yorkshire Regiment in Calcutta on July 29, 1911.
While there were IFA Shield champions since inception in 1893 that had a strong Calcutta link, these clubs like the Calcutta Football Club or the Dalhousie Athletic Club were exclusively open to the British, and their usual opponents would either be infantry divisions of the British Army, or British Indian clubs like the Calcutta Customs.
The Mohun Bagan team of 1911 played barefoot, but above all, they were able to galvanise a whole city into supporting them. Their victories over St. Xavier's, Rangers, Rifle Brigade and Middlesex set up a clash with East Yorkshire, who were expected to follow in the footsteps of the defending champions Gordon Highlanders.
Captain Shibdas Bhaduri -- whose elder brother Bijoydas was also a key member of the team -- scored the first goal for Bagan, while the second one came from striker Abhilash Ghosh as Mohun Bagan ran out 2-1 winners. July 29 is now celebrated annually as Mohun Bagan day by the club.
Mohammedan Sporting become the first Indian team to win the Durand Cup
Mohammedan Sporting were a club way ahead of their time for Indian football in the 1930s and 1940s. They became the first Indian club to win the Calcutta Football League in 1934 and retained the title till 1938, the sequence broken the following year only due to a boycott by Indian clubs including them.
This was a team that was the first from India to wear boots and also the first to hire a professional trainer. The team through this period was truly cosmopolitan - goalkeeper Osman Jan hailed from Delhi, Jumma Khan in defence came from present day North-West Frontier Province in Pakistan, while a number of their stars were from the rest of India. The 1940 team regained the CFL title after having boycotted the previous season, then also won the Rovers Cup in September, beating Bangalore Muslims in Bombay.
On December 7, they became the first Indian team to win the Durand Cup, beating Royal Warwickshire Regiment 2-1 under the captaincy of Bangalore-born Masum.
East Bengal become the first Indian team post-independence to beat a foreign club in a final
Over 80,000 spectators packed into the Eden Gardens, Calcutta to witness the 1970 IFA Shield final between East Bengal and PAS Club, Iran. PAS had been the Iranian national champions in 1967 and would go on to win the Asian Club Championship, now called the AFC Champions League, in 1993. Besides this was the era when the Iranian national team were the reigning Asian champions, a title they would retain for the following two editions of the AFC Asian Cup as well.
East Bengal were themselves setting the foundation of a very strong team over the next six years, when they would win what was then a record six consecutive Calcutta League titles, and a Parimal Dey strike made them the first Indian club to win a tournament at the expense of a foreign club since independence. Over the next decade, they made a habit of beating foreign oppositions in finals -- Pyongyang City Club of North Korea at the 1973 IFA Shield, Dok-ro-gang of South Korea at the 1973 DCM Trophy final and the Port Authority Club from Thailand during the Bordoloi Trophy in Guwahati in 1978.
Bhaichung powers East Bengal to the first ASEAN Championship title
The ASEAN Championship was originally conceived as an event for teams from south-east Asia, and East Bengal were invited as the only team from outside the region for the inaugural event which was hosted by Indonesia in 2003.
This was a strong East Bengal team, with the likes of Sandip Nandy, Surkumar Singh, Deepak Mondal, Mahesh Gawli in defence and the attacking trio of Bhaichung Bhutia, Nigerian Mike Okoro and Alvito D'Cunha up front. East Bengal were second in their three-team group, losing 1-0 to Thailand's champions BEC Tero Sasana. They then registered narrow wins over Indonesian clubs Persita Tangerang and Petrokimia Putra in the quarterfinals and semifinals, before Bhutia, Okoro and D'Cunha inspired them to a 3-1 win over BEC Tero Sasana in the final on July 26. Bhutia remains the top scorer in the history of the tournament.
It was one of the highest points in the club's history at a period when they were coached by Subhas Bhowmick and became the first Indian club to retain the National Football League title in 2003-04.
Dempo beat Home United away to qualify for AFC Cup semis
If Bhowmick's East Bengal achieved the first back-to-back national league titles, then Armando Colaco and his Dempo team went even better in 2008, not only retaining the league but also effectively winning the first official I-League crown, after the title was renamed thus in 2007-08. That year, Colaco's team carried its form into Asia, qualifying for the knockout stages of the AFC Cup while beating eventual champions Al-Muharraq away in Bahrain along the way. In the quarterfinals, they fell behind in India to Home United from Singapore, before striker Mboyo Iyomi equalised. Away in Singapore a week later, they played a blistering first half with the hosts, with both teams sharing six goals each. Ahead on away goals in any case, Dempo then became the first Indian team to qualify for the AFC Cup semi-finals with Brazilian midfielder Beto scoring his second on the night to give them a 5-4 win on aggregate.