Sporting Clube were expected to complete a hat-trick of wins, but the hosts lacked the necessary sharpness upfront. Without influential striker James Moga, Sporting Clube found it difficult to penetrate the rival defence. And when there were a couple of opportunities, the strikers fell woefully short.
Pritam Singh stepped into the boots of Moga at the start of the match but could not make much headway. His replacement, Macroy Peixoto, also failed to create any impact.
Sporting Clube, though, had their fair share of chances in the first session. All of the chances were created by Anthony D’Souza but a lacklustre Victorino Fernandes could not finish off the chances that came his way, once from point-blank.
East Bengal cruised to a facile 3-1 win over Pune FC at the Salt Lake stadium. Nirmal Chettri put the hosts ahead just a minute before halftime while Tolgay Ozbey (66th) and Alan Gow (88th) found the net in the second half.
Published 09 November 2011, 17:08 IST