East Bengal FC’s head coach Oscar Bruzon was proud of the way his team fought after their 2-1 loss against Odisha FC at the Vivekananda Yuba Bharati Krirangan Stadium, Kolkata in the ongoing Indian Super League 2024-25 on Thursday.
Chungnunga scored the opening goal for the home team to put them in front in the 53rd minute after a goalless first half. However, Jerry Mawihmingthanga equalized for the visitors after only two minutes. Hugo Boumous then scored the winning goal in the 81st minute for the tourists to seal three points for his team.
Bruzon said his players showed a lot of heart during the match despite Jeakson Singh receiving a red card in the 43rd minute.
“We could have got a goal in the second half. The bad luck is that the player of Odisha FC on the right wing (Mawihmingthanga), he was trying to do a cross and he scored a goal in the corner of the goal, so I think that was the game changer. With the 1-0 (scoreline), with the performance and attitude of our players, we would have never lost the game. With the 1-1 (scoreline), we took a little bit of risk. We wanted to win the game but there was nothing bad about it and the difference was made by two foreigners of Odisha FC (Boumous and Diego Mauricio). One good action from them, one good connection, one good association they could score,” Bruzon said in the post-match press conference.
The Spaniard gaffer admitted that injury to Madih Talal hampered their chances but showed satisfaction with the team’s fighting approach.
He added: “On the other side, the difficulty we had with the foreign players with the injury, with Madih (Talal) that was supposed to be one of the key players today. We will wait for the medical evaluation tomorrow (on Friday). It seems he has a problem on the knee. So I don’t know if we can have more problems. It’s beyond our limits. I don’t know if it’s frustration but I prefer to talk about the good performance of our players with a top team like Odisha FC. They are a team that is very settled. I feel that today they were not better than us on the pitch.”
East Bengal FC will next take on Punjab FC at the Vivekananda Yuba Bharati Krirangan, Kolkata on Tuesday.
