PANJIM: Sporting Clube de Goa will be looking to settle the scores from their season opening slump at home against the Kolkata giants East Bengal by a making a trip to City of Joy on Friday, at the Barasat Stadium, Kolkata, at 7.05 p.m.
With the curtains almost down on East Bengal’s title aspiration this match will be a battle of consolidating their position on the table for either side.
“Match like this demands a gallant performance,” said gaffer Mateus Costa.
Sporting Clube come into this match high on confidence with an empathic 5-2 victory over Shillong Lajong in the previous fixture. Safely paving their way out from the relegation battle, The Flaming Oranje will now look to reinforce their fourth position and fancy a slim opportunity to pip East Bengal from the third spot if they manage a high margin victory, hoping the Red and Gold Brigade fall in their final match.
Mateus further said, “We were the better team for most of the match against East Bengal back in Goa. It was that 10-15 minutes of brilliance which took that match out of our hands.”
He went on, “We have put up a good performance here even when we faced Mohun Bagan, our boys are confident and we are looking forward to this challenge.”
Speaking about the previous win Mateus added, “That match is over; this is a new challenge, new opponents. Well one thing am really happy about is that we scored a lot of goals in the last fixtures. That has added a lot of confidence into the squad. Earlier, we used to create chances but couldn’t get it into the nets; the previous result has definitely made the boys believe in themselves.”
However, Sporting Clube had a setback as their inform striker Sumeet Passi after a fantastic performance against Shillong Lajong couldn’t fly to Kolkata due to an injury. On a positive note their skipper and goal machine Odafa Okolie has travelled with the team, will he start on Friday. One will have to wait and see.
East Bengal interim coach Sanjay Majhi said, “This Sporting Clube team is not the same whom we faced in the first leg. We have to be cautious but we’ve no other option but to go all-out for a win.”
Regarding the bleak chance of pulling out a title this season, Majhi added, “Yes, we still have a slim chance of winning it. Although it depends on other results, still we can only hope for the best.”
However, East Bengal also have some worrying factor in the mid as their star player Bernard Mendy would not feature in Friday’s fixture due to an injury.
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