Kolkata: East Bengal FC’s return to Asian football after nine years might not have gone according to the script, but Carles Cuadrat’s team did present a credible case of being a force in the days to come at the Salt Lake Stadium on Wednesday.
East Bengal sparkled, took the lead, had a goal disallowed and fought tooth and nail before going down 2-3 to Turkmenistan’s Altyn Asyr FC in the AFC Champions League-2’s one-off preliminary qualifier.The city side is now slated to play in the Challengers Cup, the third tier of the AFC tournaments.
When David Lalhlansanga gave the home team a seventh-minute lead, the stage looked set for East Bengal to script another odds-defying tale. But the visitors from Turkmenistan showed why they are a regular in Asian football, Myrat Annayev (18) and Nurmyradov Selim (27) scoring in quick succession to go into the break with a 2-1 lead.
They swelled the lead further soon after the break, Annayev laying it for Mihail Titov to tap in and make it 3-1 in the 52nd minute.
Game over? No way. Saul Crespo produced a moment of magic, dodging past three rivals before beating the rival goalkeeper with a sumptuous finish to reduce the margin to 2-3.
The arrival of Dimitrios Diamantakos and Cleiton Silva injected more firepower in East Bengal’s ambitions and when Cleiton pushed the ball in after Altyn goalkeeper Batyr Babayev failed to control the ball properly, Australian referee Alexander King found East Bengal’s Brazilian forward to have made a foul on the custodian.
East Bengal kept fighting on but the Turkmenistan side’s ability of taking advantage of the home team’s yet-to-be-organised backline early on made the difference.