As Emami East Bengal FC players and fans continue to celebrate the end of a 22-year wait for Indian football's top-flight title, their triumph in the Indian Super League 2025-2026 has emerged as a fascinating bridge between the past and the present.
A conversation that started it all
Back in 2012, when Oscar Bruzon arrived to take charge of Sporting Clube de Goa, heralding an influx of Spanish coaches in Indian football with the birth of the ISL two years later, he came into contact with Subhas Bhowmick, who was based in Goa as Churchill Brothers' technical director. "My first talks about East Bengal came during a conversation with Subhas Bhowmick. He told me what this club was all about," Bruzon told TOI in an exclusive interview at the Kolkata Centre for Creativity office on Tuesday.
Bhowmick, who passed away in 2022, guided East Bengal to back-to-back National Football League titles in 2002-03 and 2003-04, the last time the team had won the top-flight crown before Bruzon's squad broke the jinx. "Somehow we built a very good relationship. I remember every week I used to go to Colva to meet him and have lunch together. So yeah, this ISL win is also dedicated to him because he's an important person in the history of this club," said the Spaniard, who turns 49 this Friday.
Excerpts from the interview
How these past few days have changed your life
"Being a professional coach, the best thing I can do is giving normality to this. But it's true that it has been an explosion of emotions in everything that is surrounding the team. It's an important milestone, but I always like to have my feet on the ground."
Are you staying back as East Bengal coach?
"Well, we still have one more week of the contract. There are going to be some talks and let's see what direction they go. But my first condition is not about me. It's that when the club is certain about the planning and what to do next year is when I will come into the picture."
Three key points of East Bengal's annus mirabilis
"First, the support of the investor Emami and the confidence they gave us by allowing us to continue the pre-season at a time when other teams were breaking their season. Secondly, our good results in the cup tournaments. We didn't end up winning trophies having lost two finals in penalty shootout (IFA Shield and Super Cup), but those performances gave us an insight that with a little push we could be there fighting for trophies. In the ISL, it had been a journey of ups and downs but we kept coming back from a difficult situation. Even the last game against Inter Kashi was a good example of this mentality. And you may say that the first moment I started to believe was when we came back (from a goal down) to beat Mumbai City."
Is this ISL triumph the most special one?
"No doubt about that. My career is marked by a positive belief in the face of difficulty. When I went to Maldives, we won the league with New Radiance. In Bangladesh, we made Bashundhara Kings the champion team for five consecutive years. And now in India, the triumph of the top league. So, yeah, probably this is the peak of my coaching experience and the peak moment of my career. This is also the toughest one, because in a short league, there was no room for making mistakes."
Is there any particular coach whose methods you follow?
"I like the best of Mourinho, the best of Klopp, the best of Guardiola and the best of Arteta. I like to take the best of ideas from them and integrate these into my football philosophy."
Your playing career was cut short due to injury. Do you believe in God's plans?
"I'm not superstitious. I don't believe in luck, but I believe in it when you do the things. Well, it can be God's plan, it can be karma. You can call it in a different way. But I always believe that if you are diligent and if you do good work, somehow you are gonna get rewarded."
Has this diligent, hard-working mentality always driven you?
"My coaching mentality comes from a family approach. My father was a professional hockey player. So since very early stages, he had showed me the values of sport in terms of sacrifice, hard work, determination and always putting the team first. So, it comes with my education. I'm a cool guy. But in any kind of competition, I want to win. For me, the important thing is not to participate, but to win."
