Kolkata, December 17: East Bengal SC dreamt of a miracle and achieved it in style when they fought back from a two-goal deficit in the second half to emerge 4-2 winners over Punjab FC and take all three points with them in ISL 2024-25 season match at the Vivekananda Yuba Bharati Krirangan.
Punjab FC went to the first break with a comfortable lead courtesy of Asmir Suljic and Pulga Vidal goals. Deepak Mondal and Sushil Meitei scored for East Bengal on third and fourth minutes respectively but their lead was washed out by Hijazi Maher, P. V. Vishnu, David Hmar and Suresh Meitei got one for East Bengal. The overlapping outcome makes Punjab continue to occupy the fifth position in the points table with 18 points from 11 matches as East Bengal held their position at the 11 th place after getting 10 points in the same 11 matches.
Punjab FC regained Ravi Kumar in goal keeping department as coach Panagiotis Dilmperis introduced three changes in the starting line up. Khaimingthang Lhungdim made his Deportes Iquique debut at right-back in place of Leon Augustine, who mall-3 had been rendered a non-factor due to his injury Federico Perea took the place of the injured Filip Mrzljak in midfield. East Bengal`s Oscar Bruzon used Anwar Ali in central midfield in front of defenders, Hector Yuste and Hijazi Maher. Hector Raul brought in the threat from the star striker David Lalhlansanga in combination with Cleiton Silva, Naorem Mahesh Singh and Nandhakumar Sekar.
Both the teams started off rather timidly but pragmatically but once it got free, Punjab came and dominated the midfield and made adequate usage of long balls. Luka Majcen and Asmir Suljic were always promising to put pressure on the East Bengal highline of defense. Despite a miscued finish after a well taken free-kick and a beautiful shot from David Hmar was flagged for offside.
Punjab was the first to react and opened the scoring in the 21st minute through a nicely constructed goal. Substitute Pulga Vidal chipped the ball into the box with an accurate assist to Asmir Suljic, who made a beautiful volley to score his third goal in the season while bypassing the Jamshedpur goalkeeper Prabhsukhan Gill. Punjab continued to gain confidence, they had several chances to score including a one on one chance for Luka Majcen whose effort was well save by Gill.
Pulga Vidal scored the second goal for Punjab by making a delightful run of his own. After taking a direct throw-in, he feinted to deceive Anwar Ali and then smoke a fine shot past the goalkeeper into the far post.
East Bengal came back to the match in the second half. Hijazi Maher used his head to score from a free-kick by Cleiton Silva to put his team to a nine-all tie with the hosts. Finally, from the corner, seven minutes to the normal time up, viz, at 83rd minute, P.V. Vishnu cashed in on confusion created out of Suresh Meitei’s miscalculated clearance and snapped the leveler. The fight back began when Suresh, through Nandakumar’s cross, put the ball past his own goalkeeper to make it 1-0 East Bengal.
Worse was to befall Punjab after Khaimingthang Lhungdim was given his marching orders for receiving a second yellow card. The numerical superiority was utilized to the full by East Bengal and Vishnu’s free-kick for David Hmar for a diving header goal was nothing but the bottom of the ninth.
Falling to 10 men, Punjab could only manage an effort at the end of the match. Pulga Vidal had the chances of getting a consolation goal but Prabhsukhan Gill was solid to deny the equalizer. The victory for East Bengal was third in fourth match played by the team.
Following match is of Punjab FC against Mohun Bagan Super Giant to be played on 26 December this year at the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium in New Delhi.
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