Coach Sergio Lobera has brought a new tactical vision to the current Mohun Bagan setup, and the role he has assigned to Anirudh Thapa is of a 'Mezzala'. A No. Eight who occupies half spaces, makes forward runs, creates chances in the deep and after all that, shares workload in the defence too.
In 2023, the season when Anirudh Thapa signed for Mohun Bagan, a long-running transfer saga finally came to a conclusion. Since joining the Indian Super League, the club had fixed their eyes on the midfielder from Chennai, who was running the show for club and country.
Anirudh Thapa rose to prominence during the 2017/18 Indian Super League season, when he helped the South Indian club win the ISL Cup, and won the ISL Emerging Player of the Year award. However, it was the 2019/20 ISL season which announced the arrival of the modern-day Indian Football midfield maestro, when Thapa started becoming a mainstay in the National Team setup. He had 5 assists in that season (his personal best yet!), which led him to win the AIFF Men's Emerging Footballer of the Year award.Since that day, he became a Primary transfer target of Mohun Bagan, and when his contract had only a year remaining in 2023, the Mariners finally signed him on a 5-year deal.
Anirudh possess an unique skillset amongst Indian midfielders. He is one of the rare Number 8's of this country who has a speciality in operating as a box-crashing midfielder and has a speciality in occupying the half spaces.
But under Juan Ferrando's tenure, his role changed. Thapa was used as a No. 6 with a Tangri/Glan/Suryavanshi and Juan tried to use his unique skillset of ball distribution from the deep and tried to reinvent him as a Deep-lying playmaker. The experiment was not a success and Juan had to eventually leave Bagan after registering 3 back-to-back losses in the league.
When Antonio Lopez Habas came, he registered Joni Kauko in the squad, and Thapa got a new role as a super sub. Habas often started a midfield two of Abhishek and Kauko, with Sahal in the Number Ten role and Dimitri Petratos and one of Cummings and Sadiku up top. But as the season progressed, Habas identified the ability of Thapa, and, in some games, instead of a traditional No. Ten, he started using Anirudh Thapa as an advanced No. Eight.
After Habas, Jose Molina came, and Mohun Bagan signed the best No. Six of Indian Football, Apuia, and with him, Thapa created an iconic duo. Jose Molina started to realise Thapa's attacking ability, and his system of utilising moments of individual brilliance to create chances helped Thapa play some crucial through balls from the midfield, but on many occasions, he was still restricted in a role where he would form a parallel defensive line with Apuia to make sure the team doesn't concede.
This ISL campaign under Coach Sergio Lobera is different. It has brought some new tactical vision to the current Mohun Bagan setup, and the role he has assigned to Anirudh Thapa is of a 'Mezzala'. A No. Eight who occupies half spaces, makes forward runs, creates chances in the deep and after all that, shares workload in the defence too.
What does a Mezzala do?
He operates in the half spaces, between the central and wide areas, and makes darting diagonal runs in the box to surprise opposition defenders. Anirudh Thapa is doing all these stuff under Sergio Lobera at Bagan. A classic example will be a second-half instance against Chennaiyin FC, when Dimi Petratos played a long ball into the deep and Thapa met it in the box.
Sergio Lobera has given him the licence to charge forward and be another creative outlet in the new Bagan system. Under Lobera, instead of shooting from outside the box, the coach is emphasizing on establishing control, and a player like Anirudh Thapa has the ability to occupy an attacking area in the field, who has to be responsible for ball retention and ball distribution.
Under coach Lobera, Thapa has got two assists in two games, where his second assist to Jamie Maclaren was a thing of beauty. Irfan Yadwad was making a run into the Mohun Bagan half, Thapa chased him, blocked him, recollected the ball, calmly waited for a second, saw the run Jamie was making and played a brilliant Through Ball. Jamie made no mistake in converting the perfectly-weighted pass into a goal with a first-time Shot.
Though it's early days under Sergio, Thapa's pass completion rate, Key Passes and progressive passes stats already show a stark improvement. From being a Deep-lying No. Eight to an Advanced No. Eight, the Spanish Tactician has unlocked Thapa's true potential in his role as a Mezzala.
Here is a comparison of Anirudh Thapa's stats in ISL 2024/25 and 2026 ⤵️
| Metric | ISL 2024-25 | ISL 2025-26* |
|---|---|---|
| Games Played | 18 | 2 |
| Assists | 3 | 2 |
| Key Passes (Per 90) | 1.1 | 2.5 |
| Pass Completion % | 81% | 82.5% |
| Progressive Passes (Per 90) | 4.8 | 5.0 |
| Defensive Actions (Tkl+Int) | 2.7 | 4.0 |
| Tactical Role | Deep No. 8 / No. 6 | Advanced No. 8 |
*Data current as of Feb 25, 2026. Highlights indicate areas of significant improvement or tactical shift.
While the league is currently being dominated by foreign midfielders like Miguel Figueira at East Bengal, Joni Kauko at Mumbai, Noguera at Chennai, Sergio Lobera has reaffirmed his trust in the Indian Midfield Duo, saying, "They are better than some foreigners in the league."
🗣️ Coach Sergio Lobera with some Big praise for his Indian Midfield Duo 👏🏻
— MBFT (@MBFT89) February 25, 2026
{ Joy Mohun Bagan, MBFT } pic.twitter.com/oEugJSfuca
Anirudh Thapa's rejuvenation has just started, and he needs to work on some more aspects of his game, like operating as a hybrid winger to create triangle formations in certain situations of the game. We can be confident that coach Lobera's system will improve in the coming days, and Anirudh Thapa will turn into a new-age midfield icon at Mohun Bagan.
