AFC Cup Quarter-final First Leg: East Bengal 1-0 Semen Padang – Five Talking Points

Sportskeeda reviews East Bengal’s 1-0 win over Indonesian champions Semen Padang in the AFC Cup quarter-final first leg by listing the five talking points.

Falopa has a big result to kick-start his reign

Photo Credit: Kingfisher East Bengal

Right from day one, Marcos Falopa has been reminded of the achievements of his predecessor and even before this match also, East Bengal’s Brazilian coach was reminded about the consistency of Trevor James Morgan. Falopa, to his credit, has always kept his calm whenever the topic of Morgan has come up in media interactions and has been respectful towards the Englishman throughout.

But the 64-year-old was well aware of the need of a few big results to become an instant hit among fans and more importantly, come out of Morgan’s shadow. And Falopa got one massive result on Tuesday. Although East Bengal’s performance wasn’t the best, a win with a clean sheet in the home match of a two-legged quarter-final tie is hardly disastrous and has in fact given Falopa a solid base to build on.

The players were always going to take time to adapt under a new coach and the fact that they got an important result despite not being at their best will be a very encouraging sign for Falopa. The win also maintained the Kolkata club’s perfect home record in this year’s AFC Cup. East Bengal would have preferred to have won by a bigger margin but Semen Padang were unbeaten in the AFC Cup until Tuesday and suffered only their second defeat in 24 matches in all competitions. So the 1-0 victory still remains an excellent result and could kick-start the Falopa era at East Bengal.