All through this past week, defender Naoba Singh has kept Churchill Brothers’ first IFA Shield trophy in his hotel room, not letting anyone — even his own team mates — lay a hand on it. Sitting alongside injury-sidelined striker Durga Boro, Naoba vowed on Monday to bring home more silverware when his team take on Mohun Bagan — the side they beat to win the IFA Shield earlier this month — in the Durand Cup final on Tuesday evening.

Later, skipper Odafa Okolie, not prone to making hasty predictions, also threw caution to the wind when asked about the prospect of facing Bagan in another title clash. “My job is to score goals and you’ll see how I have done when 90 minutes are over. But we can’t take things lightly,” he hastened to add, “Bagan have been close on our heels since the last I-League, and that shows their strength.”

While the Churchill players seemed calmly confident, spending the evening before their big match discovering the streets of Old Delhi, or watching TV, the business end had already been taken care of early in the morning. After a brainstorming session, it was decided that man-to-marking, especially of Bagan’s successful strikers Jose Ramirez Barreto and Chidi Edeh, was going to be the main focus of coach Carlos Pereira’s defenders on Tuesday.

“So far we’ve been concentrating more on the ball, but the coach has told us to follow the men on the field in the final. The idea is not to overcrowd the box and block the goal but to disallow their strikers possession inside the box because they’ve scored from the minutest of gaps in this tournament,” right-back Naoba said.

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