Federation Cup: East Bengal 2-1 Prayag United SC - Trevor Morgan's Side March Through To The Finals In A Bid To Defend Their Title

East Bengal beat Prayag United to march through to the finals of the 2011 Federation Cup where they would play the reigning I-League champions Salgaocar SC at the Salt Lake Stadium, Kolkata.

Prayag’s Snehasish Dutta put the minnows in front, before the former Blackpool midfielder, Alan Gow equalized from the spot for East Bengal. With the score tied at 1-1, Prayag United then had two players sent off in three minutes in the second half. Shortly after, Khem Thang Paite restored the defending champions’ lead with a wonder strike, who then held on for a famous win over their cross town rivals, Prayag.

With injury concerns surrounding the fixture for East Bengal, Trevor Morgan’s men went into the game with the Indian internationals, Mehtab Hossain and Raju Gaikwad both benched. Penn Orji also missed out as the coach decided to go in with Uga Opkara, Alan Gow and Tolgay Ozbey as the three foreigners to start the game. Unlike the British national Morgan, Sanjoy Sen had a full squad to pick from for Prayag and went in with the tried and trusted strike duo of the Brazilian, Josimar and Ghanaian Yusif Yukubu.

East Bengal kicked off the semi-final attacking from the left to the right and almost conceded in the very first minute as a blistering counter-attack had Yusif Yakubu sprinting next to the left edge of the penalty area, only to cut back a low pass in the centre of the box lining up Lalkamal Bhowmick whose shot was acrobatically saved by Sandeep Nandi, diving low to his right to deny the Prayag midfield maestro. On 14 minutes, a long ball played towards Tolgay Ozbey, who had drawn the goalkeeper Abhijit Mondal to the left edge of the box, fell into the Alan Gow’s path; the Scottish forward ended up firing his effort high over the goal.

Three minutes on, the minnows made the giants pay greatly for that miss as Nandi came off his line to claim a long ball, only to miss it completely and have the ball fall to the feet of a waiting Snehasish Dutta, who scored on second attempt by slotting it into the far corner to break the deadlock and give the underdogs a one goal advantage. On the 19^th minute mark, Gow initiated a move for the Red and Gold brigade releasing Ozbey in space on the left wing, whose low cross into the box was only inches away from an outstretching Baljit Sahni on the far post.

East Bengal started to dominate possession and were rewarded on 37 minutes when Gow’s excellent run into the box resulted in Bello Rassaq fouling the former Rangers man from behind resulting in a penalty to the defending Federation Cup champions and a yellow card to the Prayag United SC defender. Alan Gow stepped up, made the goalkeeper go the wrong way and found the back of the net to level the things up at the Salt Lake. Prayag seemed to have lost confidence after the goal as a number of poor passes resulted in them giving away the ball way too cheaply. The final five minutes were fairly quiet as the first half ended 1-1.

The second half started with Prayag attacking from left to right. Like the first, even the second period started off in a bright manner for the underdogs with the group D winners almost going infront within the first five minutes. A cross from the right wing by the goalscorer, Dutta was met by Josimar, only to be saved by Nandi.

On the 57^th minute, a decent break saw the Australian, Ozbey sprint on the edge of the box to deliver another low cross in Sahni’s path. The striker made contact with the ball on this occasion but shot over the bar. Four minutes later, Ozbey received the ball on the edge of the penalty area and cut inside but fired his shot over the bar as Prayag survived another East Bengal attack.

On 67 minutes, East Bengal made a surprise substitution by taking off, arguably, their best player on the pitch Tolgay Ozbey and bringing on Penn Orji.

Josimar had appeared to have been fouled by the East Bengal goalkeeper, Nandi in box but the referee waved away the penalty protests to allow the play to go on. Shortly later, East Bengal’s Nirmal Chettri – the last defender - fouled Josimar, who was through on goal. Nirmal should have been sent off but instead, the referee decided to be modest and show him a yellow card awarding a freekick at the edge of the box to Prayag. Yakubu stepped up, only to miss the target by mere inches.

On 75 minutes, disaster struck Prayag United SC as two of their players - Josimar and Deepak Mandal – were sent off in three minutes after being shown their second yellow cards, respectively. A couple of minutes on, Baljit pass from Orji’s lay-off found the substitute Paite waiting 25-yards from goal. The midfielder’s sweetly struck shot was incidentally his first touch of the ball and rocketed into the top corner of the net to give East Bengal the lead.

The final ten minutes saw East Bengal content in keeping the ball and letting the clock run down. Prayag United tried to press but with them being down to nine men, East Bengal demonstrated their artistry in keeping possession. Baljit Sahni hit the post twice in stoppage time as the match ended 2-1. The final whistle was followed by a Lalkamal Bhowmick hugging the referee in a sarcastic manner.

Thus, defending champions, East Bengal marched through to the finals of the 2011 Federation Cup where they would bid to retain their Cup against an in-form Salgaocar SC outfit which hasn’t conceded even a single goal in the tournament so far.