East Bengal suffer second successive I-League defeat
Yesterday, Kolkata giant East Bengal suffered their second successive I-league defeat, as they have been beaten by Khaleid Jamil’s Mumbai FC by 2-1. This might be one of the most memorable victories for the Mumbai Football Club at the Balewadi stadium. After losing their home match against Prayag United last Sunday, for the first time in this season Trevor Morgan’s East Bengal side tasted their first away match defeat. Experts are thinking that this might be the start of the downfall of East Bengal in the I-League.
Though the first half ended goalless with East Bengal enjoying most of the possession, in the second half it was Mumbai FC, who showed total domination with neat passing. Gabriel Fernandes scored the first goal for Mumbai FC in the 64th minute with a bullet shot over East Bengal goal-keeper Gurpreet Singh Sandhu’s stretched hands. Former East Bengal player Yusuf Yakubu scored the second goal for Mumbai in injury time. For East Bengal, the only goal was scored by Edeh Chidi, also in injury time.
The match was full of incidents as just after the half time whistle was blown, lights went out on one of the towers. Mumbai FC’s Darren Caldeira got injured while tackling with an East Bengal player and was taken into a nearby hospital. As a result, seven minutes were added into the regulation time
East Bengal got some genuine goal scoring chances but were not able to score. Harmanjot Singh Khabra’s 14th minute strike was cleared by Abhishek Yadav in front of the goal. A couple of Chidi’s shot was saved by the Mumbai FC goal-keeper.
With this loss, East Bengal came down to the fourth position in the league table with 21 points from 11 matches while Mumbai FC climbed one step to no. 5 with 19 points from 12 matches. Another Kolkata giant Prayag United also came down to the sixth position in the league table.