Barasat: The Blues claim the Sree Kanteerava Stadium as their fortress. Today, when Bengaluru FC arrived at the Barasat Stadium for the training, they were greeted with some deafening reception from the Kingfisher East Bengal fans with “Hail East Bengal” chants to welcome them to the new “fortress” of the Red and Gold fans. The heat of the mouth-watering Super Sunday clash between the two powerful outfits Kingfisher East Bengal and Bengaluru FC has already started to pump the football fans across the country and today’s excitement from the fans before tomorrow’s game might just be the trailer of it.
If the things go according to the training session today, then it seems that Trevor Morgan might use his all four foreigners against the defending champions on Sunday. Today in the training session, East Bengal coach tried his best to consolidate his forward line with Ildar Amirov and Willis Plaza. Interestingly, both of them seemingly pleased the East Bengal gaffer with their understanding and communication. Plaza scored four goals on his own in the match situation practice as well and Amirov scored once and assisted him twice.
Keeping the presence of BFC’s John Johnson, Cameron Watson and Juanan in the central defence in the mind, Trevor Morgan used the height and physicality of Arnab Mondal, Ivan Bukenye and Gurwinder Singh as dummies against the likes of Plaza, Wedson, Robin, Amirov and Rowllin in the set piece drills. East Bengal is likely to field the similar set of players who played the last game against Churchill Brothers except the likely inclusion of Kyrgyz international Ildar Amirov or Robin Singh in place of Semboi Haokip.
David Lalrinmuana and Jackichand Singh didn’t come to the training today, where as goalkeeper Subhasish Roy Chowdhury joined the training after playing his office stint at Lucknow.
On the flip side, Bengaluru FC trained for an hour and a half with some situational moves and fitness drills. The training indicated that they are going with two forwards CK Vineeth and Honduras international Roby Norales while Sunil Chhetri will play behind the two. Harmanjyot Khabra to play as a right fullback and Nishu Kumar on the left with two powerful defenders Juanan and John Johnson in the central defence. Australian Cameron Watson will play as a defensive midfielder with Udanta on the right and Eugeneson Lyngdoh on the left. Amrinder Singh or Arindam Bhattacharya will be there beween the sticks to prevent the goal.
Both sides seem confident after the training as East Bengal forward Willis Plaza said, “We will win tomorrow. We know we will. We are ready for the challenge.” On the other hand, Bengaluru FC boss Albert Roca said, “We love to play on the natural grass but this is an artificial turf. But I am not the man who loves excuses. We will go for three points tomorrow.”, he added, “They are one of the toughest teams of the league to beat but to be there in the title race, we need to go for three points tomorrow.”
East Bengal to play against the defending champions Bengaluru FC tomorrow at 4:30pm at the Barasat Stadium.
Probable first XI:
East Bengal: Rehenesh; Bheke, Bukenye, Gurwinder, Narayan ; Nikhil, Mehtab, Wedson, Dika; Amirov/Robin, Plaza
Bengaluru FC: Amrinder/Arindam; Nishu, Juanan, Johnson, Khabra; Lyngdoh, Watson, Udanta; Sunil, Norales, Vineeth.