East Bengal striker Bhaichung Bhutia tries to evade a Leicester City challenge during the former Premier League club’s 120th anniversary celebration match in England on Saturday. (AFP)

Calcutta, July 31: East Bengal’s English adventure suffered a 0-1 setback against Leicester City FC at the Walker Stadium on Saturday.

The India champions will now meet Maritimo of Portugal in Sunday’s third-fourth place play-off match in the Leicester City 120th anniversary tournament. According to information received here, East Bengal fought gallantly, but were subdued by a 69th-minute penalty conversion by Trevor Benjamin.

Before and after that, as the Leicester City official website says, East Bengal had put up a spirited effort and goalkeeper Sangram Mukherjee played a big role in frustrating the former Premier League outfit for a big part of the match.

East Bengal were at the receiving end of the most of the exchanges against a side relegated to the English first division last season.

However, that didn’t stop coach Subhas Bhowmick’s boys from defending resolutely and mounting attacks on the opposition goal whenever the situation permitted.

The Leicester City team was quite presumably a better-drilled outfit, keen to make it back to the top tier of English football. But East Bengal were determined to play the party-poopers.

Bhaichung Bhutia and friends had other things in mind though, and they made life difficult for the English highfliers for a greater period of the match.

In the other match, Real Mallorca of Spain defeated their Portuguese team in the tie-breaker after regulation time had ended 1-1.