SC East Bengal and ATK Mohunbagan are going to face off for the third time in the ISL as the fever of Kolkata Derby is already high among the supporters. The Red and Golds are going to take on the previous year’s runner-ups at Tilak Maidan tonight. Currently, the away sides are leading in head to heads with two victories to none for the home side, but Manolo’s men will definitely look forward to pull an upset this time.
ATK Mohunbagan have already began the campaign on a high note when they defeated Kerala Blasters 4-2 in their opening game. The Red and Gold brigade too have shown glimpses of quality when they held Jamshedpur FC 1-1 after taking the lead through Franjo Prce. Although the critics and various media outlets are considering the Green and Maroons favourites for the Derby, the Eastbengalians can boast for having a tighter defense this time.
Looking at the table though this fixture might not bear much of an importance given this is only second match-day for both the sides and so early in the season, both the sides would rather like to figure out what’s going wrong with them so that they can rectify them for the long run. On the other hand from the fans’ perspective, the Kolkata Derby can’t be compared to any other matches as a lot of emotion in entangled with this fixture. Even through his words Manolo admitted the fact that such derbies bear a lot of value both for the fans and the players, a victory in which will surely affect the next games to come.
With a more experienced squad to boast about, ATKMB will definitely like to add to the misery of the Red and Golds as the home side is still searching for the right combination and players who will fit the starting eleven. However, the early quality shown by the players like Perosevic, Prce, Jacki and Amarjit are huge positives, as that’s what will be needed to register their first victory in the new Kolkata Derby.
Predicted Lineups:
SC East Bengal – Arindam Bhattacharjee, Hira Mondal, Franjo Prce, Tomislav Mrcela, Mohd. Rafique, Amarjit Singh Kiyam, Sourav Das, Jackichand Singh, Bikash Jairu, Antonio Perosevic, Aamir Dervisevic.
ATK Mohunbagan – Amrinder Singh, Subhashish Bose, Deepak Tangri, Carl McHugh, Pritam Kotal, Hugo Boumous, Lenny Rodrigues, Johny Kauko, Liston Colaco, Manvir Singh, Roy Krishna.
