Why East Bengal could not make it to the semifinal of Federation cup?

East Bengal have been the most consistent team in Federation cup for last few years. They have gone to final for last four years out of which three years they were champions. But this year, they have been knocked out of group stage. There are a few reasons behind their loss. The following reasons may be some of them.

1. Tiredness of the players

East Bengal have just completed their matches in Calcutta Football league where they had to play 5 matches in ten days. Before that they had to play AFC cup matches and I-league matches continuously. And here they had to play three matches within a week. The hectic schedule made players unfit which reflected in their playing. Their pre-season training was also not done very well by their former physical trainer Amerigo Falopa

2. Absence of some major players

In this tournament, East Bengal did not get service of their key player Mehtab Hossain. Defender Uga Okpara was also not fully fit. Absence of these players surely affected East Bengal very much.

3. Group of death

East Bengal had Bengaluru FC, Sporting Clube de Goa, Rangdajaid FC in their group. This group could be easily named as group of death. All three other teams were very strong where BFC are at top of the I-league table and SCG are also in the upper side of the table. These two strong teams made it hard for East Bengal to go to the next round.

4. Bad form of strikers

East Bengal were depending on their strikers, Chidi Edeh and James Moga for goals. But both the strikers wasted a lot of chances in the tournament. Where Chidi missed a penalty, moga missed a lot of easy chances. You can’t expect to win against SCG or RUFC where you have missed easiest of goal scoring chances.

5. Post-effect of derby loss

East Bengal came to the tournament just after the loss against their arch rival Mohun bagan. It may be a cause that the players were morally down after losing the match. And there were sign of overconfidence after winning the Calcutta Football League.

6. Effect of the coach

East Bengal changed their coach just two months ago. Their current coach, Armando Colaco is certainly the most successful coach in the country in the last decade, but he could never win the Federation cup except 2004. He said he does not have the luck to win this tournament, but it may be possible that he never could win it because he did not give much importance on this tournament. This is clear from his decisions like making Raju Gaikwad play as left back where he had two specialist left backs, and going without any holding midfielder in the last match.