Brothers and Muktijoddha shared two titles between them to warm up for the country's top league and Mohammedan, eliminated from the semifinal stage on both occasions, where left only to fight for their pride.

They did exactly that and rose from the ashes to top the Premier-ship table at the end of the first leg.

Mohammedan's premature exit from the Independence Day Gold Cup and the Federation Cup in addition to a humiliating 5-1 defeat to arch-rivals Abahani resulted in a change of coaches. Korean Man Young Kang was shown the door after just three months in charge and the same happened to his replacement, the coaching pair of Mohammed Panir and Saiful Bari Titu.

And after more in-house drama, some new faces were brought in by the team management and it worked like a charm for the local heavyweights in association with new man Kazi Jashimuddin Joshi.

Before taking charge, Joshi had said that he had no tricks up his sleeve to change the situation overnight. All he wanted was some time before thinking of success. In the end, playing within their limitations and sticking to the task of not losing a single match against the so-called small teams kept them three points ahead of second-placed Brothers.

With other big guns Muktijoddha Sangsad and Abahani finishing a distant third and fourth with 16 and 15 points respectively, Joshi's charges -- the only unbeaten side in the ten-team fray on 23 points with seven wins and draws against Abahani and Brothers -- only have to be careful not to slip up in the second leg in bid to regain the title.

In a high scoring first-leg with an average of three goals-per-match, Mohammedan have scored 20 goals in their nine outings with half the goals shared between Alfaz and Manju. The aggregate, however, looked only better after their 6-1 demolition of Dhaka Wanderers in the ultimate league game.

Mohammedan have been deprived of the services they had expected of the foreign players and also, skipper Alfaz missed four matches in the middle. But heavy buying during the transfer paid rich dividends as a total of ten players found their names on the scoring sheet.

In the games they had struggled, they managed to score and hang on to the lead and the credit must go to a tight backline that has conceded just five goals, the lowest so far.

Brothers, still breathing down Mohammedan's neck, finished second-best after being upset by seventh-placed Arambagh and they need to see Russian striker Victor Edward -- top scorer last year -- return to form to boost their title campaign.

While teams like Abahani and Muktijoddha showed weakness in scoring as well as defending -- the two teams have found the opposition net 14 and 16 times respectively while conceding 10 and 11 -- the lowly sides have showed better marksmanship.

Three of the four bottom-table sides -- Arambagh, Youngmen's and Dipali -- shared 34 goals among them and surprisingly, rookie Youngmen's striker Robin is leading the top scorers' list jointly with five others from the top teams.

However, being the top scorer with just five goals proves that the strikers have been really struggling.

The other players are Alfaz and Manju of Mohammedan, Brothers midfielder Liton, Muktijoddha forward Paul Nwakwuchu and Abahani striker Farhad.

The second leg, which starts on July 21 with Mohammedan facing Dipali, will definitely put pressure on Wanderers and Dipali to avoid relegation. The other team to be demoted could be either Youngmen's or Arambagh.