ISL 2024: It’s important for us to keep this momentum, says East Bengal FC’s Carles Cuadrat

East Bengal FC head coach Carles Cuadrat feels it is important for his team to keep the ongoing momentum in the Indian Super League. The Red and Gold Brigade played in the ISL for the first time in the 2020-21 season but failed to impress in the tournament in the last two seasons.

However, the club has performed more consistently in the ongoing season. East Bengal FC have been unbeaten in the last five matches but have managed a single win. They have won two matches out of the ten they have played with 11 points and they are currently positioned at eighth place in the standings.

East Bengal FC also shared spoils with third-placed Odisha FC in their previous match of the season.

“When I received the call from East Bengal FC, I always knew it was a big club with a long history and great legacy. The club showed from the first moment that the club really wanted to make a change to last year’s dynamics and wants to build a (new) project for the next two seasons,” Cuadrat told East Bengal FC.

“It was important as you feel you can make an impact and you can help a century-old club to become big again. It was the main aim that made me start talking and made me see that we had the same vision about the new project,” he added.

The Spaniard added they had to alter a lot of things to be competitive in the Indian Super League. The club also retained their core players such as Naorem Mahesh Singh, Lalchungnunga, and Souvik Chakrabarti.

“It was clear to us that we had to change a lot of things in the team to be competitive so the first thing to change was a lot of players in the squad. So, we decided to bring in a new group of foreigners and kept only Cleiton (Silva) as captain as he was a player who has been performing really well in the last few seasons in the ISL,” Cuadrat stated.

“As far as the Indian players were concerned, it was very important to bring in players like Nandhakumar (Sekar) from the national team who along with Nunga and Mahesh has formed a core of Indian football players and then we had to bring in some important players who have trained under me in the past like Prabhsukhan Singh Gill,” he added.

East Bengal FC will look to continue the good show in the tournament.