Calcutta, July 2 :     East Bengal were lucky to return with full points against FCI in their campaign opener of the McDowell Cup at Salt Lake Stadium today. On a hot and sultry afternoon, the teams dished out some rather bland soccer. It took a strike from substitute Chandan Das to ensure victory for the red-and-gold brigade, the lone goal coming in the 82nd minute. Das, who replaced Ranjan Dey just four minutes before, came to take a free kick, a few yards outside the box. His powerful grounder went past the wall and rolled in as FCI custodian Arindam Ghosh looked on helplessly. The first half remained goalless with honours shared in terms of opportunities to score. The red-and-gold brigade never did dazzle as their fans would have expected them to. As early as the 14th minute, FCI got a good chance to go ahead, but Samar Polley failed to convert with only the goalkeeper Sangram Mukherjee to beat. In the 21st Carlton Chapman missed an opportunity that came his way, and hit Ghosh without any provocation. Surprisingly, he wasn't even warned by the referee. For East Bengal, their two strikers, Dipendu Biswas and Ukrainian Andriy Malchevsky, were totally off colour. According to coach Syed Nayeemuddin, their foreign recruit was not fully fit and not yet used to playing in such humid conditions. Dipendu too messed up a few opportunities, the best of which perhaps came in the 23rd off a free kick from Malchevsky. The ball floated towards Dipendu from the right, but he failed to connect properly. A few minutes later, a diving header from the left by Dipak Mondal was well saved by Ghosh at the near post. The second half, apart from the goal, saw very little planned soccer. The match overall seemed to lack cohesion, but despite the loss, FCI could perhaps draw consolation from the fact that they stretched their much-fancied opponents to the limit. Nayeemuddin later admitted that they were lucky to win today. 'We only got to know yesterday that we would be playing in the tournament. So it will take a little while longer to prepare ourselves well.' Tomorrow, Tollygunge Agragami will take on CPT at the same venue. CPT lost to Mohun Bagan in the opener yesterday, while for Tollygunge it will be their first outing of the meet. TEAMS EAST BENGAL: Sangram Mukherjee, Sur Kumar Singh, Dipak Mondal, Anit Kumar Ghosh, Ratan Singh, Carlton Chapman (Srikanta Dutta, 66th), Isiaka Awoyemi, Ranjan Dey (Chandan Das, 78), Dipankar Roy (Sk. Sanjib, 54), Dipendu Biswas, Andriy Malchevsky. FCI: Arindam Ghosh, Babun Kar, Subhasish Roy Chowdhury, Robi Shankar Guha, Sanjit Dutta Bhowmick, Amar Pyne (Debasish Pakira, 61), Braja Dulal Jana, Sanjoy Dutta (Dipankar Bhattacherjee, 86), Saikat Mondal, Samar Polley (Sankar Chowdhury, 86), Supratik Ain. Referee: Ratan Dutta.