Faulty East Bengal squander lead twice to lose 2-3 to Al Shorta in AFC Champions League Two

Antonio Lopez Habas looked absolutely livid with the way things transpired at the Salt Lake Stadium on Tuesday. And why wouldn’t he be?

East Bengal not only just led 2-1 at the halfway stage but had a brilliant opportunity to shut the door on Al Shorta SC in the first half itself of their AFC Champions League II clash. In the end, owing to their faulty defence and inability to convert simple chances, East Bengal conceded twice after the change of ends to suffer a 3-2 defeat.

East Bengal’s situation gets tougher as they have slipped from the top two in group D with just one point from two matches. On this occasion, East Bengal even had the numerical advantage with 13 minutes remaining for regulation time, when Abdul Magid Moumoni was sent off after being flashed a second yellow card.

The Iraqi side now has two wins from as many games. But not much of a difference in terms of quality was noticed in their game. Rather, they didn’t seem to be too strong defensively, with gaping holes in their backline whenever East Bengal were on the charge, particularly in the first half.

In fact, David Lalhlansanga, who scored both the goals for East Bengal, could have netted three more before half-time itself when Jay Gupta and Hardik Bhatt fed him with assists. Fortunately for Al Shorta, such was East Bengal’s goalmouth profligacy that they returned with full points when they had every chance of losing.

And then, the sloppy work from the home team’s defence despite the presence of India footballer Anwar Ali hurt them badly. The momentum was with East Bengal when the second half got underway. But with just eight minutes into the half, Al Shorta were ahead with strikes from Hussein Al Saedi and Kinglsey Kuku.

Ahmed Yahya, who had scored Al Shorta’s equaliser earlier, centred one from the left for Hussein to slot home. Anwar and Croat Diego Zivulic seemed at a loss during that move. Soon after, Kuku was allowed a free header — as Yahya was in the first half — off substitute Cristian Barco’s corner, which turned out to be the winner for Al Shorta.

One certainly feels for David, who scored the first with a superb turn off Hardik’s centre and then was quick to position himself to score his second off captain Mohammed Rashid’s fine back-pass.

In the end, though, both he and East Bengal will rue the sitters he missed on the stroke of half-time.

Also worrying for East Bengal is Edmund Lalrindika’s form.