The Hindu : Sport / Football : Fransa shocks East Bengal

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Apr 13, 2005

Sport

Sport - Football

Fransa shocks East Bengal

By Our Sports Reporter

KOLKATA, APRIL 12. Fransa Pax FC of Goa dealt a major blow to Kingfisher East Bengal's title hopes, beating the latter by a solitary goal in a 16th round match of the IX National Football League here at the Salt Lake Stadium on Tuesday.

Defending champion East Bengal was undone by the good tactics employed by the NFL debutant, which cleverly complemented its defensive approach with speedy counterattacks. Fransa midfielder Peter Rodrigues scored the winner in the 87th minute of the match.

The result pushed East Bengal to the second spot (33 points) behind Dempo SC, which has 34. Sporting Clube de Goa is third with 32. With this win, Fransa (25) moved up to fourth position ahead of Mahindra United (24) and JCT Mills (22).

The effect of the 5-0 drubbing in the AFC Cup against Jordan's Al Faysali appeared to weigh down East Bengal. The East Bengal attackers — Baichung Bhutia and Alvito D'Cunha — failed to provide the finishing touches even as the visitor came up with threatening moves.

East Bengal came close to scoring in the first session but the attempt by its central-half, Chandan Das, came off Hardeep Saini, who made a crucial goalmouth save for Fransa.

Fransa, throwing caution to the winds, launched an attack in the climactic stages. Saini progressed unchecked to the host box before releasing Ogor with a short square pass. The Nigerian relayed the ball to Rodrigues, who made no mistake with a powerful right-footer that beat East Bengal goalkeeper Raja Ghosh Dastidar.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport