Kolkata: Carles Cuadrat, the realist, is insisting East Bengal FC will not start favourites against Turkmenistan’s Altyn Asyr FC in the AFC Champions League preliminary play-off.
Cuadrat the believer, however, is ready to embrace this challenge as a new beginning for his team.
The match at the Salt Lake Stadium on Wednesday will mark East Bengal’s return to Asian football since their AFC Cup group stage exit in 2015.A win in this one-off fixture will fetch them a place in the first-ever ACL 2 edition while a defeat will take them to the Challenge Cup, the lowest in the AFC club tournament system.
Aware of the stakes, Cuadrat described it as a “difficult test” for his players. “We’ll play against a team that is showing why it deserves to be in an AFC competition year after year, having qualified for top 9AFC) competitions every season. It’ll be a good test for us to prove that we are also at that kind of level and can represent the country in a top competition like the ACL-2,” the Spanish coach said on Tuesday.
“We are not favourites for this game. We are playing in Asia after 9 years and have a lot of inexperienced players. It will be the first game (in an Asian tournament) for some of our players. But one thing is clear that East Bengal will play with a never-say-die attitude and we’ll hope to take advantage of our home crowd,” he added.
Cuadrat has had the experience of facing the Turkmenistan rivals. During his stint with Bengaluru FC back in 2018, Sunil Chhetri & Co. lost the two-legged AFC Cup inter-zonal semifinals 5-2 on aggregate.
Never a man fond of beating the drum for revenge, Cuadrat, however, will take on Altyn Asyr at a challenging time. The senior team’s pre-season is just two competitive match-old with the all-important derby against Mohun Bagan SG coming up in four days time with a Durand Cup quarterfinal spot at stake. Players like Hector Yuste are yet to join the side while a few others are nursing injuries.
Yet, amid the euphoria of India defender Anwar Ali’s unveiling during the club’s Sports Day ceremony, Cuadrat knows that his team can announce the arrival of its new-found ambitions with a win over Altyn Asyr.
“We want to raise the standards. We reached two finals last season and were not so good in the ISL. We want to be the protagonist in all the competitions we want to play this season,” the East Bengal coach remarked.
For a team founded only in 2008, winning Turkmenistan’s top domestic league (Yokary Liga) 8 times and being a regular in Asian football speaks volumes of Altyn Asyr’s emergence as a force to reckon with.
The visitors from Turkmenistan have the form and history on their side. But the red-and-gold’s history is replete with many odds-defying tales. It remains to be seen if Nandhakumar Sekar & Co., starting as underdogs, can rise to the occasion and alter the script.