Internet Desk: After a lot of confusions and hiccups, East Bengal officials confirmed Somide Adelaja as their third foreigner today with the green signal from coach Trevor Morgan.
Adelaja joined East Bengal training on Sunday but his acid test was the last two practice matches against Bongaon XI on Tuesday and Mohammedan Sporting today. The Red and Gold brigade thrashed Bongaon XI by a massive margin of 8-0 but Adelaja could not net a single in that match and his performance was too not up to the mark.
Today East Bengal played a practice match against Mohammedan SC which ended in a 1-1 stalemate. Adelaja did not play the full 90 minutes as he was introduced in the second half for only 20 minutes where he could not do much to impress the coach and he was absent for training yesterday too as some media had informed him from before hand that he will be axed.
But now, as East Bengal does not have any other option in hand with hardly any time left for the CFL to commence and it will take time to get a new unknown striker in the folds. East Bengal had talks with Daniel Bidemi earlier who is in Nigeria right now along with Cameroonian striker Rooney who was also supposed to come on trials yesterday but he did not turn up. The Red and Gold officials was also supposed to bring Ghanaian striker Richard Mensah for trials next week through Abel Hammond.
East Bengal football secretary, Santosh Bhattacharya said, “Yes we are signing Adelaja as the third foreigner for the CFL in the next couple of days. Coach Morgan has given the green signal so we are going ahead with him.”
Somide Adelaja last played for Guwahati F.C. in the Second Division League 2015-16 where he scored 5 goals from 7 appearances. The Nigerian also had successful stints with Mohammedan Sporting and United Sikkim F.C.