East Bengal prevail over Tollygunge

Defending champions East Bengal showed signs of reversing their sliding fortunes with a 2-1 victory over a spirited Tollygunge Aggragami in a sixth National Football League match at the Salt Lake stadium in Kolkata on Wednesday.

The experienced Suley Mussah and Jo Paul Ancheri scored the goals for the glamour club while a costly goalkeeping lapse by rookie custodian Sudipta Sarkar allowed Tollygunge Aggragami to reduce the margin in a fast paced encounter.

East Bengal shot into the lead within the first 30 seconds of the contest through Mussah. Even before the spectators had settled down, defender Mussah slotted home a centre from Jo Paul Ancheri much to the delight of his teammates.

But their opponents levelled two minutes later as Sarkar miskicked a back pass from defender Ishiaka into his own goal.

Ancheri then scored what turned out to be the match-winner in the 28th minute of the first half. Collecting the ball from a combined move, East Bengal medio Chandan Das ran through the middle and sent the ball towards the Tollygunge box, and Ancheri, who was lurking inside the rival box, banged home neatly.

East Bengal shone in patches with their Brazilian ace Carlos, Sule Musa and Chandan Das combining well and ebullient medio Joe Paul Ancheri providing the necessary back-up support.

Though East Bengal players were mainly responsible for the goal they conceded, Tollygunge put up an equal fight but failed to find the target. Tollygunge were also unlucky as in the 59th minute as striker Mose's shot hit the post.

With this victory, East Bengal have logged 14 points from 11 matches while Tollygunge Aggragami have 12 points from 11 matches.

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