SC East Bengal played a rather less intense game and might consider themselves lucky to manage a draw against Jamshedpur FC in their first match of Hero Indian Super League. The excitement among the fans were high, but after the display especially of the first half, it can quite be assumed that the team failed to live up to the expectations!
The first half witnessed a number of remarkable events including the only two goals of the match. Debutant Lalrinliana Hmante got a great chance to score in the first ten minutes when a brilliant run by Perosevic down the right found an onrushing Hmante who curled one in at the hands of TP Rehnesh. SC East Bengal didn’t have to wait much when they got the lead through Franjo Prce. A corner flicked on by Perosevic found Prce in the crowd who attempted a bicycle kick and found the net thanks to a deflection off Valskis. Jamshedpur enjoyed far more possession than the Kolkata giants, who looked to open up spaces through route one but couldn’t link up properly with their Nigerian forward Daniel Chima Chukwu.
Repeated attacks from Jamshedpur were well defended by the red and golds till the last minute of injury time of the first half, when Jamshedpur equalised from another corner. This time Hartley found himself unmarked who didn’t hesitate to punish the rather complacent East Bengal players. It was Rafique who was assigned to mark the Jamshedpur FC defender buy his lapse in concentration made the team pay a huge price, and lost all hopes of securing a win.
The second half was marked by absolute dominance of Jamshedpur FC. With the introduction of Ishan Pandita, the workload on Valskis decreased and the away side started exploiting more and more wide space. SC East Bengal brought on Amarjit and Dervisevic to strengthen the midfield which appeared to be very vulnerable against the opposition. Substitute Jackichand Singh almost caught TP Rehnesh off his guard when he tried to score from a long ranger while TP was too much higher up the field. Dervisevic showed glimpses of quality but the overall performance looked very average.
There is more work for Manolo’s men to do in the training ground, but as of now keeping immediate expectations too high might not be good. Football is a game of surprises though, so if the staff can address the weaknesses properly who knows what awaits for the men in red and gold.
