Mumbai: East Bengal realised the full impact of the absence of their key players on Sunday when they suffered a humbling 2-0 defeat to an inspired Air India in the third round of the I-League at the Cooperage.
Surojit Roy and Man of the Match Michael Tayo produced the goals — both in the second half — for Air India to capitalise on their opponents’ depleted squad and preserve their strong home record.
“It is a good day for us. We have never beaten East Bengal by a two-goal margin. This is the first time,” a beaming Air India coach Bimal Ghosh said.
East Bengal struggled to make up for the absence of Sunil Chhetri, Edmilson, Alvito D’Cunha and Surkumar Singh. The ploy to use Yusif Yakubu as a creative midfielder paid limited dividends as the team failed to finish the opportunities he provided.
Coach Stanley Rozario had no option but to push him to the front in the second half, but by then the Mumbai humidity had sapped the African’s energy and he could make little difference. Similarly, Nirmal Chhetri, usually a full back, tried to cope in his new role as a winger but with minimum success.
Rozario refused to criticise his players, and instead blamed the conditions.
“Everything went wrong for us, right from not getting a practice ground. The ground was bumpy and the humidity was very high,” he said.
The visitors began well when Parveen Kumar came close to scoring in the third minute but his header went wide. But that was all Rozario’s men had to show for the first half — in fact, the whole match. Although they controlled the midfield with Yakubu showing his touch, it was Air India who were taking more shots at the goal.
Soccor Velho repeatedly ran down the right flank to test the East Bengal defence and one of his passes in the 16th minute found Roy unmarked in the goal area but the latter shot wide. Velho himself would take aim at the rival goal three minutes later but his drive missed the target by inches.
But Air India got the reward for their hard work in the second half, when, three minutes after resumption, Roy collected a Velho pass and beat two defenders to net the ball.
The goal caught the Calcuttans napping and they could muster no fitting response. Unfortunately, Air India fell back to defend instead of taking advantage. It was only in the final quarter that their forwards again sprung to life.
Subhash Singh, coming on as a substitute, snatched the ball from Jayanta Sen near the half-line and made a fast run to feed Tayo, who slammed it in with a sharp right footer from the top of the box to left corner of the net.
TEAMS
Air India: Arup Debnath, Napolean Singh, Ravinder Singh, Syed Farid, Uttam Kr Singh, Soccor Velho, Surajit Roy (Vijith Shetty), Kailash Patil (Subhash Singh), Emmanuel Ovieghara, Michael Tayo, Chukwuma Udofia
East Bengal: Subroto Paul, Nirmal Chhetri, Suley Musah, Khelemba Singh, Saumik Dey, Syed Rahim Nabi (Mehtab Hossain), Mehrajuddin Wadoo (Malsawmkima), Yusif Yakubu, Rennedy Singh, Ashim Biswas, Parveen Kumar (Jayanta Sen)
Referee: .P. Thakur
MoM: Michael Tayo
