A 10-man East Bengal prevailed over its traditional rival Mohun Bagan Super Giant 2-1 in the new season’s first meeting, in the Calcutta Football League’s top division fixture, at the Salt Lake Stadium here on Saturday.
Despite getting the derby tag, this was a match with a difference as both the teams fielded their reserve players under an Indian coach, who generally serves as an assistant to an overseas head coach in the Indian Super League.
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With a recent regulation by the national federation – AIFF – barring the employment of foreign players in the domestic football leagues, the CFL derby saw the two sides with only Indian names locking horns in the battle of prestige.
This was also the first meeting between the two rivals in CFL after a break of five years (they last met in the local league in 2019). The CFL also put in place a rule that mandated every participating team to have a minimum of four ‘sons of
soil’ in the playing eleven.
East Bengal scored once in each half – two young Kerala recruits, P.V. Vishnu and substitute Jesin Thonikkara, found the net in the 51st and 65th minutes.
Mohun Bagan SG managed to pull one back late in injury time (90+6 minutes) through its Kashmiri recruit, Suhail Bhat. East Bengal was reduced to 10 men in the 77th minute when Joseph Justin was marched off following his second booking.
