Super Cup: An interesting game on the cards

The Indian football season proper is finally set to kick-off with the Indian Super Cup to be played later today at the Tau Devi Lal Stadium in Gurgaon. The match will see I-League champions Dempo Sports Club from Goa taking on Kolkata's East Bengal Club, who about a couple of months back had been crowned Federation Cup champions.

This year the Super Cup isn't the season ending match as it has been in the last few years, but it is the curtain raiser for the I-League which opens on Friday. The match will kick-off at 17.30 IST in Gurgaon and will be shown live by Bengali news channel 24 Ghanta.

An interesting match is on the cards. Armando Colaco's Dempo will want to show East Bengal that they are still the best team in India, while the red-and-gold will want to continue their great run from the Calcutta Premier Division and the Federation Cup to win their third title of the season.

Dempo will once more hope that Roberto Mendes Silva and Ranty Martins Soleye deliver for the Goans as numerous of their regular players like Anthony Pereira, Climax Lawrence, Mahesh Gawli and others are away on India duty. But it also gives younger players and new signings a chance to shine on the national stage.

Federation Cup champions East Bengal have named a 16 member squad for the Indian Super Cup match, but the Kolkata giants will miss the services of Australian Tolgay Ozbey due to injury. And that could hamper the red-and-gold in their quest for a third Super Cup title.


East Bengal Club - Squad

Goalkeepers: Jayanta Pal, Sandip Nandy; Defenders: Saikat Saha Roy, Naoba Singh, Uga Okpara, Gurwinder Singh, Sunil Kumar Thakur, Ravinder Singh, Soumik Dey; Midfielders: Harmanjot Singh Khabra, Mehtab Hossain, Penn Ikechukwu Orji, Beingaichho Beokhokhai, Alvito D'Cunha; Forwards: Robin Singh, Budhiram Tudu. Coach: Trevor Morgan.