KOLKATA: India’s oldest football tournament is hours away from an odd and unprecedented beginning. However, kick-starting the Durand Cup with a Kolkata derby for the first time in its 135th-year-old history has its own hype and hazards. Because, the blockbuster match between East Bengal FC and Mohun Bagan SG at the Salt Lake Stadium on Saturday will also set in motion the start of India’s domestic football season as well and the hard truth is that both teams look oddly underprepared.Let’s fix our gaze on some strange layers of the match. ISL champions East Bengal and runners-up Mohun Bagan — now under new coaches Antonio Lopez Habas and Panagiotis Dilmperis respectively — have hit the training ground running only four days ago. Not to mention the fact that while Habas will have only newcomer Dani Ramirez and old hand Mohammad Rashid available for selection, Dilmperis’ cupboard looks emptier with Serbian forward Dejan Drazic being the only foreigner to take part in Friday’s pre-match training session — a strange departure from the past when overseas players have predominantly emerged as show-stealers in such duels. It’s somewhat fitting that domestic players will now get the kind of spotlight they are rarely granted, thereby giving this season-opening derby primarily an indigenous spine.“We haven’t had enough time to train. It’s impossible to prepare properly for such an important match in just a few days,” Habas admitted on Friday. “Our idea is to make the team solid, compact and competitive. We need time to develop our model of play, but that’s the foundation we want to build,” he added.It’s a strange but emotionally-charged homecoming for the 69-year-old Spaniard, who holds a rare link to the inaugural season of ISL and has guided now defunct ATK to two titles and Mohun Bagan to an ISL winner’s Shield.“I have absolute respect for Mohun Bagan and for everything we achieved together. I have wonderful memories of the fans and my time in Kolkata. But now I have another job, another responsibility. I have to fight for my new team,” Habas said.His counterpart, Dilmperis — fondly called Panos — is also bracing for a challenging debut. Having made his mark as Punjab FC coach, the 51-year-old Greek couldn’t have asked for a toucher test for his coronation as Bagan coach.“Starting my journey with a derby is exciting because this is why football exists. Football is about rivalries, competition, and passion. Joining a club like Mohun Bagan, with its incredible fan base, rich history, ambitious ownership, and high expectations, is not pressure for me—it is a huge source of motivation,” Panos remarked.“For me, every match is a derby. Whether we are playing the team at the top of the table or the bottom, I prepare with the same intensity,” he maintained.The last time a domestic tournament began with a derby happened way back in the 2004-2005 season of I-League. However, by that time, both teams had already gone through the grind of the local league. Starved of adequate time to pass muster, both teams are facing a whole new ball game. The likes of Bipin Singh, Edmund Lalrindika and David Lalhlansanga in the upfront as well as Jeakson Singh and Anwar Ali in defence contributed immensely to East Bengal’s march to the ISL summit last season. They will again be tasked with a new challenge of rising to the occasion.For Bagan, Liston Colaco, Manvir Singh and Sahal Abdul Samad will again be central to the team’s ambitions.However, it may threaten to float away into its own strange space; this season-opening derby with essentially a rare desi look will have the odds stacked against no team. It’s floating along the usual 50-50 narrative.