East Bengal chug along merrily

CALCUTTA, FEB 9: East Bengal, playing a very relaxed brand of football, collected full points against Indian Telephone Industry in Group ...

CALCUTTA, FEB 9: East Bengal, playing a very relaxed brand of football, collected full points against Indian Telephone Industry in Group B match of the National football League today.

With the 2-0 victory, East Bengal, runners-up last year, have 20 points from eight matches. With the remaining two matches against Indian Bank and Mahindras to be played in Calcutta, East Bengal are almost certain to finish on the top in their group.

ITI have five points from eight games and are as good as out of this edition of the League.

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Both the East Bengal goals came in the second half with the home team spurning at least a dozen more in the entire match. Although Ghanian Emmanuel Opoku and Raman Vijayan were the scorers today, Bhaichung Bhutia stood out for his creativity. The striker did not search for goals himself; instead he created a number of openings for Vijayan and Opoku.

Had Vijayan converted even half the opportunities that came his way, East Bengal might have well crossed Mahindras’ victory margin overITI.

Of course, ITI goal-keeper Balaji and to some extent stopper back Muralidharan, did well to terminate quite a few East Bengal moves.

The first goal came in the 52nd minute when Opoku latched on to the ball and controlled it well before taking a left-footer past Balaji. Four minutes later, Bhutia directed Renedy Singh’s flag-kick towards Vijayan, and the lanky striker just had to rise high enough to head the ball in.