East Bengal scorers (from left) Vincent Pires, Chandan Das and Raju Singh, after defeating Railway FC at the club ground on Sunday. A Telegraph picture

Calcutta: While two other giants Mohun Bagan and Mohammedan Sporting facing hiccups at the initial stage, East Bengal showed no such signs as they bulldozed Railway FC 3-0 in the Sahara CFL Premier Division match at home on Sunday. Chandan Das scored from penalty to give the red-and-golds a 1-0 lead in the 67th minute, while Vincent Pires (77) and Raju Singh (90+) bolstered the lead.

It was a patchy start with East Bengal getting their first chance in the 27th minute when a Jayanta Sen corner was wasted as Syed Rahim Nabi failed to connect the header from within the six-yard box.

But East Bengal outplayed their opponents with their effective utilisation of the flanks through Pires and Saumik Dey. Central defender Anupam Sarkar was as usual putting in a lot of effort to keep the Railwaymen out of the scoring area. Set-piece specialist Jayanta and Man-of-the-Match Dipankar Roy were seen producing the balls one after the other, but the forwards Bibiano Fernandez, Ashim Biswas and Fredy Mascarenhas failed to capitalise.

East Bengal took the entire first half to gauge the opponents and went on to the attacking mode only after the breather. The most notable one came in the 67th minute when a Mascaranhas shot was fisted inside the box by Railway FC goalie Somnath Khara. Dipankar, while dodged the ball past one defender, was tackled illegitimately by Sundar Mandi and referee Minangshu Bhattacharjee pointed towards the hot spot. Chandan converted the spot-kick with ease.

East Bengal went 2-0 up 10 minutes later. Saumik’s long through was intercepted well by Dipankar who wasted no time in setting it up for cool-headed Vincent Pires who made no mistake in slotting it home.

From this moment onwards, East Bengal looked to dominate with guns blazing except for one occasion in the 85th minute when Railway FC’s Tapan Das came close to scoring from a set-piece. His right-footer missed the horizontal by a whisker.

East Bengal put the final nail in Railway FC’s coffin in the stoppage time. A Pires through for Gouranga Dutta, who took a first timer, was well-saved by Khara with the ball dropping inside the box. Raju, who was lurking in the zone, took a side-volley to pierce the net.

East Bengal coach Carlos Roberto Pereira da Silva said that the performance of his squad won’t be affected even if six players get busy with national team engagements. The India camp is currently underway in the city.

“The players on the bench are equally good and I don’t see any problem…” he said.

TEAMS

East Bengal: Abhra Mondal, Vincent Pires, Anupam Sarkar, Gurpreet Singh, Saumik Dey, Jayanta Sen, Dipankar Roy (Raju Singh 87), Bibiano Fernandez (Chandan Das 56), Syed Rahim Nabi (Gouranga Dutta 58), Ashim Biswas, Fredy Mascarenhas.

Railway FC: Somnath Khara, Tapan Das, Sankar Das, Sundar Mandi, Rahul Mistry (Alokendra Nath Middey 45), Gourab Dutta, Subhronil Dutta, Biplab Naskar, Sanjay Das (Nirapada Mondal 71), Surojit Karmakar (Suraj Mondal 29), Sanjib Mishra.

Referee: Minangshu Bhattacharjee.

Man-of-the-Match: Dipankar Roy.