Kingfisher East Bengal are all set to meet their Kuwaiti rivals Kazma today at the AFC Cup clash.
The match will kick off at 6.30 p.m. local time at Peace and Friendship Stadium. The match will be played on natural turf but the ground condtion is not good as there is uneven bounce. It is quite chilly in the evenings here with the temperature falling below 10 degrees. There was a sandstorm in Kuwait last night. East Bengal trained at the main stadium from 10 am today and will also have a workout tomorrow.
The club have been warmly welcomed by their local fans and supporters when they arrived at their hotel yesterday and it is expected that they will turn up in large numbers for the game tomorrow. The team is staying at Movenpick Hotel in Kuwait.
In the pre-match media conference today the red & golds boss Trevor Morgan said, “We realise the importance of tomorrow’s game as we cannot afford to lose after having sacrificed three points in the earlier game against Al Orouba due to a bad refereeing decision.” He further added, “We do not have much information on our rivals but we are expecting a tough match as Kuwait has a much higher Fifa ranking than India. We will also be missing four of our key players including two midfielders (Mehtab, Sushanth, Naoba, Vashum) who have not come due to injuries.”
Kingfisher East Bengal player Tolgay Ozbey told, “We do not know much about the opposition but are expecting a hard match tomorrow. We have to make up for the loss of our first match.”
Meanwhile the Kazma coach Milan Macala said, “Our preparation have been based from our matches vs Arbil SC in AFC Cup, Al Shabab and Al Noor in local league and Al Qadsia in Emir Cup. We do not have any information of East Bengal other than what we have gathered from the net. We will play carefully and the team is more or less injury free other than Alex Somiyan of Ivory Coast who is doubtful. We will play seriously to get three points.”
-East Bengal Press Release
