The unbeaten run of East Bengal..

I am writing this thing and hoping I am not going to curse it. 

Last year East Bengal didn’t win I-league. They missed by a very thin margin in the end of the league, which prompt lot of speculation about the team coach and also the famous drama of striker. Well in the end the sense prevailed in the east Bengal management they let striker go and kept the coach. Traver Morgan, well yes that’s the name which have changed the way east Bengal have been doing there business in last few years. Here the management needs applaud, they have kept the belief in the team even they have missed the title in last few years. 

East Bengal has been unbeaten in last 31 matches. Believe it or not they still not lost the match this season and they have already played Dempo. It is not easy to maintain that kind of consistency in the Indian football circuit, where there is not fixed fixture schedule and every Kolkata club have to play in Kolkata league as well. When I looked at this team, it has been all together a very different from all the team which has been builds over the time in Kolkata. There are no star player, only star player there stiker is now in opposite direction of team.

This season, east Bengal has done simple things. They have replaced a prolific striker with two three good player. The best thing about this team right now is they are not dependent on any one. Last few seasons they have been dependent on mehtaab but now even without him team is winning. They are winning and in a ruthless manner. There defence is holding in a better way than any other team even after losing Nirmal chhetri. They have become a unit which is well behaved; they know how to perform their task.

The only concern I have about this team is, how they will play once they will be involved in AFC cup as well. They have done badly in last few AFC cup, but the thing is they have been regular over there and most of team is the same. I have feeling this year they will do better in AFC cup because of the squad dept they have. I know it is too early to predict, but I have a feeling this might be year of East Bengal to clean sweep the board of trophy.

P.S.: Only team I fear is Mohan Bagan as they will play with heart in the darby. J

The Rise of East Bengal in Virtual World

Well I was amazed when I read this piece of news somewhere. I did little bit research to find the truth behind it.

East Bengal's official Facebook page has more than 4 lakh likes. That's a staggering statistic considering the poor turnouts in even their home matches of the I-League. Only three in Asia had more in the list of the top 100 clubs as released by futebolfinance.com last April.

All three - Persib Bandung (2 million+), Sriwijaya FC (6.4 lakh+), Persija Jakarta (3.9 lakh+) - are from Indonesia. East Bengal's page had more than 3.5 lakh back then. On Thursday, the number had swelled over 4.70 lakh.

East Bengal's page is handled by the company that bankrolls the football team. "Facebook has great potential to reach out to fans and attract new ones. That is why we regularly update our page and try to make it as interactive as possible," said a representative of the team that handles the page. Other pages related to Indian football also have sizeable membership. Twitter too has accounts of Indian clubs and others dedicated to domestic football. The numbers here are smaller possibly because Indians still use Twitter less.

How it started

Following domestic football through social media started in 2007 on Orkut when a community named 'Indian football fans' was formed to discuss everything and anything related to the sport in India.

Membership kept increasing and that laid the foundation for more such communities. As Indians shifted from Orkut to Facebook, the platform for following Indian football also changed but the passion only increased. Archrivals Mohun Bagan (14000 + likes) and some older clubs haven't gone the East Bengal way but newbies such as Pune FC (30000+), Shillong Lajong (10000+) and United Sikkim (3000+) are using social media very seriously.

The I-League and other domestic tournaments continue to struggle to get fans to the stadiums. On the social media, the opposite is true.

Now Some facts of social science:
Most liked clubs:
Barcelona 33 Million+
Real Madrid 29 Million+
Man Utd 26 Million+
Those beaten by East Bengal:
Newcastle Utd 293 Lakh+
Atletico Madrid 2.7 Lakh+
East Bengal Fan likes 4.70 (As on July 9th 2012)….

P.S.: Now I am one of the proud fan of east Bengal. We need to create more online fan and also get them involved in the facebook as well.