East Bengal players ? (from left) Shylo Malsawmtluanga, Dipankar Roy and Subhas Chakraborty ? practise at the club ground on Tuesday.

Al Faisaly captain Hatem Mohammad Yousef Aqel at the team hotel. Pictures by Santosh Ghosh

Calcutta: Whatever happens in East Bengal?s AFC Cup match versus Jordan?s Al Faisaly at the Salt Lake Stadium Wednesday afternoon, it isn?t likely to be good soccer. While the formidable Jordan team arrived Monday sans four of their top players, East Bengal coach Subhas Bhowmick laid his priorities clearly: ?Priority No. 1 is the National Football League (especially Sunday?s derby vs Mohun Bagan), hence I will not risk fielding Bhaichung Bhutia and Alvito D?Cunha versus Al Faisaly. I want to rest them.?

Doesn?t bode good for the Calcutta team. And coach Bhowmick doesn?t really believe in miracles. ?We must be practical. We had pumped in five goals versus Tollygunge Agragami in the first leg of the NFL, and in the second leg they just closed all doors to their goal to us. We?ll have to do a traffic jam, likewise, tomorrow.?

That points towards an ultra defensive approach for East Bengal ?working only through counter-attacks.? Practically, Bhowmick believes he has no option. ?Bhaichung is not fit, he has lost 6kg, and that?s not good. I must rest him. He and D?Cunha are my key players, I need them. I have decided this today, of course, the club authorities can have other views.?

Club secretary Kalyan Majumdar, who was present, did not comment. One wasn?t sure if Bhowmick?s bold decision will finally hold sway.

Bhowmick will also not be able to field injured Habibur Rehman Mondal and Deepak Mondal. ?I know I can still (theoretically) make the next grade in the AFC Cup even if I lose tomorrow.?

Al Faisaly top group A with seven points from three matches.

If that looks like tame soccer for the morrow, the Jordanians didn?t seem too keen to go all out either. Practice at the Salt Lake Stadium in the afternoon was restricted to 25 minutes of sweating out. Even as assistant coach Ziad Abu Sheman said they will be able to ?manage? in this heat and humidity, the players themselves were out of breath, talking of the ?incredible heat?. ?It is not like this in our country,? said Saman Jehad Saman Hal?Asa, who had scored two goals in East Bengal?s 0-5 loss. ?The humidity factor is killing us.?

The hattrick man, Moyaed Mansour, though, has not been able to accompany the team here, having earned two bookings. Also not around is their first goalkeeper Ahmed Safi, who was in a car accident recently. Mohamed Mohadin is injured. Another star, Hatem Al Shabone, isn?t here because he is getting married.

There are seven national team players in the team here. They are Mohammad Khamees Rajeh Khamees, Abdelhadi Mohammad Ali Almaharmeh, Khaled Sa?ed Sallam Almalta?ah, Saman Jehad Saman Hal?asa, Adnan Mohammad A. Alshuaibat, Qusai Moh?d Mah?d Abu Alieh and skipper Hatem Mohammad Yousef Aqel.

Interestingly, when asked which of the East Bengal players impressed them most in Amman, assistant coach Sheman pointed at Bhaichung and D?Cunha. When informed that these two players will, most probably, not be playing tomorrow, they said it would ?be good for us.?

Al Faisaly finished runners-up in the just-concluded Jordan league. In fact, they have a record of 30 league titles. ?We are playing too many matches this year,? said manager Jamir Oregad. ?That is interfering in our preparation and fitness.?

Sounded pretty much like what Bhowmick said: ?The authorities in Indian football are not bothered about scheduling NFL matches in such a way that there are rest periods around clubs? international fixtures. We are overburdened.

?The Jordanians are not only technically superior to us, physically too they are way over us,? he said. ?This has been a stepmotherly treatment of the AIFF towards our club. I may be in trouble for saying this, but I have to.?

Bottomline: Jordan just want a win, they say so. East Bengal just want to hold on to their citadel. In the extreme heat and humidity (if rains don?t intervene), there?s going to be a drudgery of a match Wednesday afternoon.

EB’s SCORESHEET

0-0 vs Muktijoddha (Calcutta, on March 9)

2-3 vs Nebitchi FC (Balkanabat, Turkmenistan, on March 16). Scorers — EB: Marcos Seco and Bhaichung; Nebitchi: Perov, Meredov, Arazov.

0-5 vs Al Faisaly (Amman, on April 6). Scorers — Al Faisaly: Moyaed Mansour (3), Saman Jehad Saman Hal’sasa (2)