Churchill Brothers continue their dream run by derailing East Bengal
Churchill Brothers continued their dream run by hammering East Bengal by a clear 3-0 margin at Salt Lake stadium in Kolkata today. Hendry Antchouet scored a brace in the 32nd and injury time of the first half while Akram Mograbi scored the third in the 83rd minute of the match.
All eyes were on this high voltage encounter of I-League.
It was the battle between the two best teams of this I-League according to two different perspectives. Prior to this match, Churchill Brothers had scored the most number of goals by scoring 37 in the I-League so far while East Bengal were the side who had conceded the least number of goals with just six so far.
It was also the battle between two masterminds, East Bengal coach James Morgan & technical director of Churchill Brothers Subhas Bhowmik.
Morgan started with a 4-4-2 formation. He tried to go all out from the beginning by introducing Robert instead of Saumik Dey and Larindika Ralte instead of Naoba Singh in his starting line up.
Subhas Bhowmik started with a 3-5-2 formation, surprisingly keeping his main weapon, striker Akram Mograbi, out of the starting line up. Instead of Akram, he introduced Hendri in his first eleven, a strategy which bore fruit for him later.
It was East Bengal who started to attack while Lalrindika Ralte‘s shot just rebounded off the wall and when the ball was played back in, the offside flag went up, in the 12th minute of the game.
In the 16th minute, Arnab Mondal made a clear handball while trying to clear a corner taken by Steven Dias. The visitors started to appeal for the penalty but referee denied them this time.
In the 34th minute, Hendri scored the first goal for the visitors following a free-kick taken by Steven Dias which was initially saved by the East Bengal custodian Abhijeet Mondal.
In the injury time of the first half, Hendri scored the second following a great through ball from Leni Rodriguez from the right side.
East Bengal started to counter from the beginning of the second half but were repeatedly blocked by Raju Yumnam, Bilal and Sandip Nandy in the opponent’s defence.
In the 79th minute of the game, Subhas Bhowmik introduced Akram in place of Hendri, which once again worked in his favour.
Akram scored the third for his side & sealed the match following a skimming free-kick from the right taken by Beto himself. During that goal, the East Bengal defence was static rather blocking it out.
The visitor’s custodian Sandeep Nandy showed his efficiency against his former teammates, as he remained unbeaten throughout the game, worked like a fortress as the last line of defence.
Subhas Bhowmik, along with the entire Churchill Brothers side, have now taken sweet revenge, keeping in mind their first leg home defeat against the same opponents by the same margin. Eventually, its Churchill Brothers’ ninth straight win in a row in the I-League.
East Bengal remain on 33 points after 17th round while Churchill reached to 37 points from 15 matches which puts them one step closer to the I-League crown.