Why ATK Mohun Bagan’s Roy Krishna is better than his impressive numbers

In the Indian Super League (ISL), Antonio Lopez Habas has managed players of the calibre of Luis Garcia, Helder Postiga, Mohammed Sissoko and Borja Fernandez, who made 23 appearances for Real Madrid and nearly 200 more La Liga games for other teams. Any question on them would elicit different variations of the same answer. I don’t like talking about individuals, Habas would say, in Spanish and in gradually improving English thereafter.

So, it wasn’t unusual for the ATK Mohun Bagan coach to say “all the players” need to be at their best “at this crucial moment of the competition.” But to a follow-up question on whether Roy Krishna is mentally the strongest he has coached, Habas, speaking before the last league game against Mumbai City FC, said: “Every day in training session, every day in matches he is the same. He does not want to rest, never. I am proud of the performance of Roy and the behaviour inside and outside of the pitch.”

READ | Roy’s goal: Tracing India roots

Krishna’s combination of 14 goals and seven assists this term (22 games) and 15 goals and six assists (21 games) last season puts him in the upper echelons of the league's best performers. FC Goa striker Igor Angulo, joint-highest scorer with Krishna in 2020-21, isn’t among the top 20 in the list of assists. And Angulo’s teammate Alberto Noguera, who heads the list of assists with eight, isn’t on the list of top 20 goalscorers. Hugo Boumous, the Mumbai City FC midfielder, also has seven assists but is 30th on the goalscorers' list with three goals in 15 games.

Yet these numbers don’t tell the whole story. They don’t say that Krishna has played 1972 minutes this season and 1834 minutes in 2019-20. That means the 33-year-old Fijian has been involved in nearly every minute of the campaigns of ATK and ATK Mohun Bagan since arriving after winning the Golden Boot in the A-League with Wellington Phoenix (18 goals in 25 games with four assists). The numbers also don’t say that he can score different kinds of goals: a poacher’s strike off a set-piece (NorthEast United, Odisha FC); winning and converting a penalty (FC Goa); speed, technique and finish coming together against SC East Bengal; running behind the defence to meet Carl McHugh’s through ball (NorthEast United) and even from an off-side position against Jamshedpur FC which stood because he was switched on and the assistant-referee was not. The numbers don’t say how Krishna turns up at big games: the Kolkata derby, or the semi-finals of ISL 6 and 7 for instance.

And they don’t mention that he is the focal point of ATK Mohun Bagan’s attack in a season where the team’s attacking players -- Edu Garcia, Javi Hernandez, Marcelinho and David Williams -- have often struggled with form, injury or both. They also don’t point out how alert he usually is to team needs, be it killing seconds in second-half stoppage time or tracking back to aid the defence.

“He is the best player in this ISL,” said Bhaichung Bhutia. Strikers, said Bhutia, need to have a gambler’s instinct; they must know when to make that run, get into the right area. “You can get better with experience but it is something you are born with,” said Bhutia, the former India captain who has played for East Bengal and Mohun Bagan. “Krishna is smart, he is sharp and tactically very aware, something that many Indian players lack. That comes from playing in good teams under good coaches. He had it before he came to India where the quality of defenders, their positional sense may not be as high as A-League.”

Proof of how clinical Krishna can be came in the season opener against Kerala Blasters. After missing a proper connection to an early corner-kick, he scored in the 67th minute by snatching a botched clearance, chesting the ball and firing a snap left-footer.

Krishna scored in the next four games and again against FC Goa, taking his tally to five goals in six games. He improved on that, scoring in six successive games -- the run beginning in the 1-2 defeat to NorthEast and continuing till the 3-1 win against SC East Bengal -- in a season where he travelled for 40 days, spending 30 days in quarantine in New Zealand, Australia and Goa before starting training.

“I have done it a few times before. It feels good to be able to maintain that continuity,” said Krishna on his six-game goal run after the second Kolkata derby on February 19.

And when he isn’t scoring, Krishna gets his mates to do that -- he had three assists in the double-leg semi-final against NorthEast United which ATK Mohun Bagan won 3-2 on aggregate. “He is confident with the ball, always ready to dribble past one, two players. And he is very aware of where his teammates are,” said former India striker Shyam Thapa who has also played for Mohun Bagan and East Bengal. “He is fast, he is strong and it is hard to get the ball off him,” said ATK Mohun Bagan and India central defender Sandesh Jhingan. The goalkeeper Luis Barreto, who has played for FC Goa, East Bengal and Dempo, called Krishna “electric”.

That and the minutes in hot and humid conditions is also proof of his fitness. “If you look after yourself, stay disciplined -- and I am sure he does both -- 33 is no age,” said Thapa. “It is actually the best time to be a footballer,” said Bhutia. “You have the experience.” Bhutia also said it is possible that Krishna may not have had a major injury.

So, is he the best foreign striker ever to play in Indian football?

“For him to be compared with (Jose) Barreto or Chima (Okorie), he will need to keep up this level for at least two more seasons,” said Bhutia. Krishna might not have Barreto or Okorie’s longevity -- both came to India in their early 20s -- but he has been instrumental in winning Asian competition slots for his team, taking it to one ISL title and to one win away from another. On Saturday, when ATKMB play Mumbai City in the final Krishna also has a stab at a rare double: winning the Golden Boot and the Golden Ball.

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