The black-and-white brigade earned qualification for the IFA Shield today with a lone-goal victory against George Telegraph at the Barasat Stadium in the IFA Shield qualifiers final. Adebayo struck the winner in the 70th minute from a free-kick that confused George custodian Manas Barua and sailed into the nets.

The Md Sporting coach seems to be quite anxious rather than being happy to have qualified for the prestigious tournament. He gave injury to key players and exhaustion as the main reasons.

Explaining the situation, Ali told The Indian Express: “Key players like Mike Okoro, Adebayo, Kulothungon and Jyothi Kumar are not only injured, but very tired after participating in five matches in the last 10 days. Naturally, as our focus is to earn qualification for the elite I-League next season, I will request my club secretary that I want to participate in the IFA Shield fielding most of the reserve bench players.

“Otherwise, it will be difficult for us to perform really well in the I-League qualifiers.”