East Bengal begin with a strong 3-0 victory
Sunday, July 11, 2004
Shaking off the early season rustiness East Bengal romped home 3-0 against Railway FC in their inaugural tie of the Kolkata Super League that also served as a warning of what was in store for the other clubs as the team got into groove.
Bhowmik had already said his team was only 35 per cent prepared and he would use the league to experiment and try out different combinations to see how they fit into the scheme of things. The fact that as many as seven players who were in the first eleven were donning the club colours for the first time was proof enough of the fact.
East Bengal’s first goal of the season came riding a spot-kick. Malswama burst inside the box being fed by a precision through from Selwin Fernandes. Railway FC central defender Shankar Das had only one option to stop the wily mideo. He tripped Malswama and refree awarded the penalty. Alvito finished with consumate ease placing past railway defender Soumen Mondal.
Bhowmik had no intention of letting the reins of match go the railwaymen. So when he saw Suraj Mondal make forays into his box from the left with inexperienced Gurpreet Singh finding it difficult to control, in came Dipak Mondal and changed the complexion of the match. Playing as a sweeper he allowed Shasty Duley and Malswama to change flanks and be more operative.
In the 67th minute of the Climax Lawrence got his first goal for the club when showing tremendous reflexes he latched onto a loose ball from a wickedly swerving Alvito freekick from the top of the rival box and bludgeoned the back of the net with a rasping right-footer.
Nitin Pradahan who also came to East Bengal this season looked out-of-sorts on a turf very different from the sandy base of Goa. Bhowmik replaced him with the slightly built and immensely talented Dipankar Roy. And Roy left his mark on the game with a brilliant goal.
Newly acquired Nigerian defender Aniweta sent a long cross to the top of the rival box which Dipankar collected and on the run throwing of a couple of his markers with deft feints placed to the far post to set the crowd into euphoria.
East Bengal’s defence still does not look so organized as they survived a scare on a couple of occasions. But poor marksmanship fro Suraj Mondal and Sandip Karmakar saved the day for East Bengal. Meanwhile Shankar Das, guilty of giving the red-golds their penalty, made amends when he effected a goalline save off an Alvito attempt.
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