East Bengal Club of Kolkata faced Churchill Brothers of Goa in the first phase of I-League encounter on Friday, 22nd January, 2010 at Yuva Bharati Stadium,Salt Lake, Kolkata . East Bengal own the encounter 3-2. But this match would be remembered for lot of reasons.
Churchill Brothers is perhave the best team of India at this moment and is Defending champion of the I-League tournament. Also earlier this year the team had own IFA Shield and the Durand Cup. But the team was without the service of their prolific goal scoring machine Odafa Okolie. Who was out due to double booking.
East Bengal on the other hand didn’t had a good start to the season losing to all and sundry. The team also had a historic 5-3 loss against the Arch rival Mohan Bagan which the later considered as the revenge to the 35 years old 5-0 drubbing by East Bengal. This promted the resignation of the then club coach of East Bengal, Mr Subhash Bhowmik who had been architect of many tournament that had been own by East Bengal both as a player and as a coach. Winning Historic Asean Cup was per have the most prestigious of them. Since then De Ridder came into scenario, he took charge of the team and the team overcame tough resistance to win the Fed Cup 2009-10.
Since then the team once again had bit of poor run in the ongoing I-League loosing to Chirag United of Kolkata and drawing with a average team of Mumbai FC. So East Bengal needed to win this encounter badly to stay in contention of the title.
Coach Philip De Ridder realizing the situation went for blood since the start.In the first minute itself Alvito De Cunha and Nirmal Chetri both took shot at the Churchil goal but was magnificently saved by Churchill goalkeeper, Arindom Bhartacharrya . Chrchill then conceded 3 corners within a minuate such was the fierceness of the East Bengal attack.
But in the 8th minute East Bengal conceded a own goal by the East Bengal skipper Syed Rahim Nabi against the run of the the play. East Bengal drew blood within a minuate by an excellent through pass from Bhichung Bhutia which was able send to the goal by the veteran Yousuf Youkubu who lost his mother the previous day. Within next couple of minute Churchill scored again from a defensive lapse of the wall of East Bengal defense, Opara who trying to clear the ball took a shot that hit the Churchill striker Felix and the deflection went to an unmarked Vashum who scored for the visitors. Since then it was brilliant wing play by East Bengal’s Alvito and Abel Hammond and in the upfront Bhichung and Yakubu were making life difficult for the visitors and in once such situation on the 38th minute Yakubu heeded in his and East Bengal’s second goal of the match from Alvito’s lob. This goal took his tally to 100goals in the I-League, which is by far the most goal scored by anyone.
In the second half it was an all East Bengal effort with the home team winning 14 corners all together in the match. It was a superb effort by Bhichung, Yakubu in the upfront, Alvito in the left wing and Hammond in the right wing and it appeared the East Bengal could draw blood in any moment which eventually came in the 53 minute from a Alvito corner which was heeded in by Hammond and then headed into the goal by Bhichung it was also the East Bengal’s winner .For the rest of the match it was story of rush of goal miss by the East Bengal forward and struggle of the Churchill defense.
Yakubu ultimately won the Man of the Match. After the match was over he became sentimental, tears was flowing down his checks. It was really a suburb display of grit by him. Even after such a tragic incident of loosing his mother he continued to play and own the match for his team.
That’s all we have here today meet u all again at a proper time.
