AFC Challenge League: East Bengal faces FC Arkadag of Turkmenistan in quarterfinal

AFC Challenge League: East Bengal faces FC Arkadag of Turkmenistan in quarterfinal

East Bengal FC will look to overcome its recent failure on the domestic stage with a good performance internationally when it meets Turkmenistan’s FK Arkadag in the first leg of the AFC Challenge League quarterfinals at the Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata on Wednesday.

With Mohun Bagan SG bowing out of the AFC Champions League Two earlier, East Bengal remains the only Indian side in the continental championship.

Given its situation, the Red and Gold will be eager to win at home and secure an early advantage before it travels to Arkadag for the return leg on March 12.

Head coach Oscar Bruzon, who helped East Bengal qualify for the knockouts after a fine performance in the group league stage in Bhutan, felt that the team would be able to put behind its recent disappointments.

“We are representing a club with the most participation on the international stage from India. We are carrying today in our T-shirts the flag of the country. We can see the expectation the game has generated. So, from the coach’s side, I think that it is about giving continuity to the work that we are doing through the season,” Bruzon tried to put things in perspective.

“We were going through a lot of issues in the current season. But following the recent performance of our boys, I feel that we can perform with maximum momentum and have a nice game against Arkadag,” Bruzon added.

The East Bengal coach will be counting on the performance of the foreigners as the tournament regulations do not put any limit on their usage. With Anwar Ali nursing a hamstring injury, Bruzon will be missing an important member of the team’s defensive organisation.

“As you are watching, Cleiton (Silva) is recovering well in the last training sessions. And the game is for 90 minutes. So, we are going to optimise our resources. As this tournament allows unlimited registration of foreigners, we will react according to the situation. We will assess the conditions – if we are winning, if we are losing, if we need to hold more, or if we need to go all out in attack – and then decide on the combination,” Bruzon said about how he will utilise the options.

East Bengal has six foreigners available, of which five are in midfield or attack – including Dimitrios Dimantakos (Greece), Raphael Messi Bouli (Cameroon), Saul Crespo (Spain), Richard Celis (Venezuela) and Cleiton Silva (Brazil).

Spain’s Hector Yuste remains the only foreign option in the defence. With the domestic players contributing enough in the eight wins East Bengal has managed till the penultimate round of ISL (which is the best showing by the team so far in the tournament’s history), Bruzon will also have a lot of good options to choose from the Indian roster.

As for its opponent, Arkadag remains a largely unknown opponent, having recently started its campaign in the domestic season. “The situation is tricky as we cannot analyse their new players. The reference that we have about Arkadag is about the time they played the AFC Challenge League games back in October.

“However, they can have good references about us as we had a hectic calendar in the last few months,” Bruzon said about the contrasting scenario. “But I don’t see it as an advantage or a disadvantage. I see that both teams are coming in a different momentum, and we have to be prepared accordingly,” he added.