Jamie Maclaren, the Australian World Cupper in an exclusive interview with Parallel Sports, spoke about his experience with MBSG in his debut season.

Parallel Sports: You have lots of experience in the A-League, and now you're playing for Mohun Bagan, and you had a tough time beginning, and you were injured there. What takes time to adapt here?

Jamie Maclaren: It's obviously a beautiful country a new country for me to to live in but like I've touched on in many interviews before the support I had from everybody at Mohanbagan,the fans,the staff, when I was injured I had so much support so much love so much care and I think that gets players because we play football we put our bodies on the line every single day every every week and injuries do happen and I and I believe that what made me recover quicker was was the support I had and I'm so grateful that I've got that support and and once I was fit I've been able to show my quality and and I think that I've contributed well enough this season but there's there's more goals to come from me and from the guys and more trophies. 

Parallel Sports; You have lots of experience in the A-League now; you played for Mohun Bagan in the ISL, so what is the difference between the two leagues?

Jamie Maclaren: I think the weather plays a bit of a part but um you know I love the fact that I'm playing in front of 35,000 minimum uh and that's something that I wasn't doing in in Australia and I think that when you have such a big crowd a passionate crowd um you want to per form for them so and I know that the the pressure and the expectation is to to always be competing for at the top end of of the table and we've had such a great season we've broken records um and US everybody can be proud um we're it's a collective and um we're so proud of our efforts but one thing I will say is that we're not we're we're not stopping now um we're really hungry to to Really perform and and we know that we have three special games to to bring our fans and bring this beautiful city another Trophy and um and that's something that we'll be pushing for and and we'll get at some of our injured boys we'll get them back fed and uh we'll have a a great depth in in our Squad because we've got the best team in this league and the best people so I look forward to uh to the end of this month I'm getting fresh and we're ready to go in April.

Parallel Sports; We hear that when you came here and Dimi was talking to you about clubs. What were you talking about?

Jamie Maclaren: Dimitri said there's only one club in India to go to when there were rumours; only I and Dimi know the truth, and that was a big point of me coming here, as Dimi played a big part, although he won't really want to take the limelight. I've played with him before for the national team, and I played with him in Brisbane to do this. The other day when he scored, it was so special; I was there. No one was happier for Dimi than me, so put it that way, so put, you know, we've won a trophy together; it's our first trophy as a pair, and, yeah, we look to add to that. You know, Dey's got another year on his contract, and I think that, you know, Jason as well is another player that I've played with previously, and I wanted to come and play with good players, and this is the best team in India, and we've shown that, but we want to continue to show that.

Parallel Sports; So you played with Dimi, and now we played with Jason Cummings also and Greg Stewart, with whom you most enjoyed?

Jamie Maclaren: All of them. I wish we could play all together um we're all different look I'm a number nine demy and Greg are more number 10 and Jason can do both and it's a great little combination that we've got going and we've all scored goals in big moments when the teams needed us so all I'll say now is we've got three games obviously we have the go one this Saturday where we can celebrate with our fans and and with our family but the three games we have coming up we've got hopefully two at home and  we're going to need every single big name player and every xfactor player every young player every experienced player and we're going to need us and and and this is one thing this team does is we turn up on big moments. 

Parallel Sports: What is the experience to play your Kolkata Derby?

Jamie Maclaren: It's one of the best feelings you can have, and I scored in the first half in the Kolkata Derby, but it was a shame that my second Derby was taken away from Kolkata, but I did score that night as well, and I know that there would have been some parties back here in Kolkata celebrating, so yeah, there are no more Derbies, I think, this year, and both teams are probably on their offseasons and we just we just continually show that we are the team to beat here in Kolkata and we're the team to beat here in India and next season I want to be the team to beat in Asia so we've qualified for that and we just keep pushing the barrier and  keeping our professionalism standards and we keep on building and  stay confident. 

Parallel Sports: Did you, uh, taste any Bengali cuisine, or did you learn any Bengali words?

Jamie Maclaren: I know a few words, but I don't think they're good enough for the camera.