AFC Cup: East Bengal win 2-1 against Tampines Rovers, close in on Round of 16

Kolkata giants East Bengal Club scored another victory against Tampines Rover, this time a 2-1 win in their fourth AFC Cup Group H match at the Saltlake Stadium in Kolkata this afternoon. With this win the red-and-gold moved to 10 points from four matches.

Chidi Edeh came on early for an injured Andrew Barisic, who opened the scoring in the 22nd minute with his second goal of the campaign only for Mohamad Shaiful Esah to pull Tampines level on 68 minutes, but winger Lalrindika Ralte scored the winger with four minutes to go for a deserving win.

"We are now favourably placed for qualification and hopefully we can achieve that in our next match," said East Bengal coach Trevor Morgan. "The heat had a bearing on the pace of the match which was much slower than the pace in Singapore."

With Tampines unable to advance to the knockout stage after suffering a third defeat in Group H, East Bengal will secure a place in the Round of 16 in the next round as Malaysia's Selangor beat Vietnam's Sai Gon Xuan Thanh later on Tuesday, which puts East Bengal top of the group.

"The deserving team won and I would like to wish him all the best for the next round," said Tampines coach Nenad Bacina. "As we do not have any chance of qualification, we will concentrate on the S.League from now on."


East Bengal Club
1-Abhijit Mondal - 7-Harmanjot Singh Khabra, 16-Gurwinder Singh), 2-Raju Eknath Gaikwad, 29-Saumik Dey - 15-Sanju Pradhan [C] (81' 24-Cavin Lobo), 14-Mehtab Hossain, 18-Penn Ikechukwu Orji, 21-Lalrindika Ralte - 26-Manandeep Singh (67' 6-Baljit Singh Sahni), 27-Andrew Barisic (15' 10-Chidi Edeh)