George Telegraph scorers Gour Naskar (left) and Saheed Olowo after their win against East Bengal at the Salt Lake Stadium on Thursday. A Telegraph picture

Calcutta: East Bengal ambitions seem to have hit a new low with the loss of Sahara CFL Premier Division title to arch-rivals Mohun Bagan.

With nothing but pride at stake in their penultimate match on Thursday, Subrata Bhattacharya’s side returned with the stigma of a 1-3 defeat against George Telegraph at the Salt Lake Stadium.

Saheed Olowo scored twice in 24th and 33rd minutes and Gour Naskar added another in between (29th minute) for George Telegraph in a fantastic display of attacking football, which swept away the pride of Federation Cup champions completely. It was as if a Super Cyclone hit East Bengal hard.

Ashim Biswas did fetch East Bengal a consolation goal five minutes from the break, but it was never meant to kick-start any sort of a revival. They were reduced from bad to worse in the second half, with no finesse in the attacking third and lack of enterprise from the midfield.

Mohun Bagan secretary Anjan Mitra might smell a rat, but the defeat was, in essence, a poor advertisement of the East Bengal character. If Mohun Bagan players dazzled and roared on way to their 27th title on Wednesday, East Bengal ended up mewing and chewing the ignominy in a way which looked hardly East Bengal-like.

On a day, when the kick-off was delayed by 30 minutes due to unseasonal rain, East Bengal slipped in the beginning.

With Eric Jenue and Asto Karar operating from the front, George Telegraph went into the lead when a Chandan Das miss pass was picked by the rival captain Subha Kumar. He sent in a through for Olowo around East Bengal’s half-line area in the 24th minute. Olowo dribbled past a couple of East Bengal defenders before unleashing a brilliant 35-yard right-footer which crashed into the far end corner of the nets.

Five minutes later, another Subha Kumar pass found an unmarked Gour Naskar, who quickly took a left-footed shot that went in after hitting the inside edge of the far post.

More attacks crashed into the East Bengal citadel which fell again within four minutes. Having been fed by Satyajit Bose, Olowo had little difficulty in making the scoreline 3-0 with a left-foot tab.

East Bengal were shocked and awed with just a two hundred-odd true blues rubbing their eyes in disbelief.

Ashim headed in a Mehtab Hossain centre in the 40th minute but the damage was already done and with no game plan on display, they never recovered from the first-half setbacks.

They still managed nine corners in the second half but these went a-begging with no player in red and gold colour being able to get past George Telegraph resistance.

A lot was expected from debutant M.M. Mukansi, who played as a central mid-fielder. But he was a big letdown, perhaps a reflection of his teammates as well.

George Telegraph now have 12 points from 13 outings while East Bengal stay at the second place with 25 points.

TEAMS

George Telegraph: Arnab Das Sharma, Suman Dey, Eric Erhisennobe Jenue, Asto Karar, Biswajit Saha, Satyajit Bose (Samar Deb 87m), Gour Naskar, Paban Das, Subha Kumar, Prodip Roy, Saheed Olowo (Goutam Thakur 89m).

East Bengal: Subrata Paul; Syed Rahim Nabi, Meherajuddin Wadao, M. Suresh, Debarata Roy, Mehtab Hossain (Dipendu Biswas 64m), Chandan Das, M.M. Mukansi (Alvito D’ Cunha 30m), Dipankar Roy, Edmilson, Ashim Biswas.

Referee: Kashinath Sen.