Excitement at an all-time high as East Bengal FC return home to play FC Goa

The homecoming gets grander as ever as East Bengal FC play FC Goa at the Vivekananda Yuba Bharati Krirangan in Kolkata on Wednesday in their first home game of the Hero ISL 2022-23. The City of Joy is all decked up to welcome their heroes and the ripples of the excitement are felt throughout the city.

The home team displayed some good momentum in the first half in their campaign opener against Kerala Blasters FC last Friday before going down 1-3. This outing provides them a great opportunity to stage a comeback in front of their passionate fans.

EBFC were quite aggressive and commanding in the first half where they read the game well and even created a couple of chances and did not allow their opposition to settle in. Goalkeeper Kamaljit Singh stood out with 7 saves to his name and lifted the morale of the team in every possible situation.

However, the home side’s standout performer was Alex Lima who impressed one and all with his work-rate and creating multiple chances. He finally ended up with a goal in the dying minutes of the game and had 29 passes, 44 touches and a passing accuracy of 72.41%.

“We’ll get better every week. The players are working very hard. I am very happy with the atmosphere in the team. We have 6 solid foreign players and a group of Indian players who have something to prove. Hopefully, we can grab the 3 points against FC Goa and move on.” Head Coach Stephen Constantine expressed in the pre matchday media interaction on Tuesday.

Talking on the coaching opportunity with the esteemed club, Constantine added, “It’s a great privilege to be in this position as the Head Coach of East Bengal FC. I know how important this team is to the community. My old friend Subhash Bhowmick would tell me.’ It would’ve been good if he were here.”

“East Bengal has an incredible history, and we need to respect that. I hope we can win against FC Goa. My message to our fans is, come to the stadium and support us. We can promise them that we are working very hard to make them proud.” Defender Ivan Gonzalez quoted.

FC Goa are known to have an aggressive style of play and that is likely to continue with the likes of foreigners Edu Bedia and Alvaro Vaszquez in their ranks. Youngsters Dheeraj, Anwar Ali and Muhammed Nemil have a lot of potential along with the experience and precision of Brandon Fernandes and Seriton Fernandes make it a formidable unit. New Spanish signing Iker Guarrotxena also promises a lot of goals as a playmaker for FC Goa.

HEAD-TO-HEAD

EBFC hold the upper hand against FC Goa in terms of head-to-head performances. The two sides have played a total of 5 matches with EBFC wining two, drawing two and losing just 1. Interestingly, the last ISL victory that EBFC registered in the 2021-22 season has come against the same rivals, a 2-1-win courtesy Mahesh Singh Naorem’s brace.

FULL SQUAD

Goalkeepers : Pawan Kumar (13), Kamaljit Singh (1), Naveen Kumar (32)

Defenders : Sarthak Golui (16), Mohd. Rakip (2), Ivan Gonzalez (4), Charalambos Kyriakou (40), Ankit Mukherjee (19), Lalchungnunga (5), Jerry Lalrinzuala (17), Pritam Kumar Singh (33), Nabi Hussain Khan (34)

Midfielders : Sumeet Passi (6), Aniket Jadhav (7)Amarjit Singh Kiyam (8), Angousana Wahengbam (12), Alex Lima (14), Himanshu Jangra (18), Souvik Chakarabarti (23), Jordan O’ Doherty (24), Mobashir Rahman (15), Mahesh Singh Naorem (29), Tuhin Das (37)

Forwards : Eliandro (9), Cleiton Silva (10), Semboi Haokip (26), VP Suhair (11)