Oscar Bruzon bluntly blames one player as East Bengal's ISL playoffs hope end with Bengaluru FC draw

Oscar Bruzon’s East Bengal now sit at the eighth spot in the ISL 2024-25.

Oscar Bruzon’s East Bengal saw their dreams of qualifying for the 2024-25 Indian Super League (ISL) playoffs end with their 1-1 draw against Bengaluru FC at the Salt Lake Stadium, Kolkata on Sunday (2 March). The Red & Gold Brigade dominated the majority of the first half, taking a lead through Raphael Messi Bouli’s powerful strike.

However, Dimitrios Dimantakos was sent off towards the end of the half for an apparent headbutt on a Bengaluru FC player. East Bengal fought hard with 10 men in the second half, but a late Sunil Chhetri penalty took the game away from them.

Oscar Bruzon hold Diamantakos responsible

Oscar Bruzon did not shy away from blaming Diamantakos’ sending off as the element that held his side back from winning the game, as he stated: “Today we are out of the top-6 race because of the reaction of one of our players that resulted in the red card. It happened when the team was attacking, pushing for chances and was dominating and when the fans were with us. Unfortunately, the actions of Dimitrios have cost us the game and a chance of qualifying for the top-6.”

The East Bengal coach did, however, praise the overall effort of his team and explained: “This is the positive output of the game. The boys today were fantastic in an 11v11 game, there was only one team dominating. We were hunting very well,, winning the ball in opponent’s half, and creating beautiful chances. Unfortunately, if we could’ve made it 2-0 after 1-0, the result of the game would’ve been different.

“We had a lot of chances, but in the last 25 minutes of the game, when they started putting pressure in our box, of course, it’s unlucky to concede from those actions in the box. This is the way we want ot play. If we can keep going like this and improve some particular aspects of the game, then East Bengal will be ready to win important things,” the Red and Golds boss also added.

East Bengal’s upcoming adventures

East Bengal will now play three games in the space of under two weeks. That includes two games against FK Arkadag in the AFC Challenge League quarter-finals, as well as their final ISL league phase game against NorthEast United. When asked about his side’s approach for this triple-header, Bruzon stated: “The first thing is to try to capitalize on the home advantage of our first leg against FK Arkadag. If we go there and suffer a bad result, if they get to win the game here (in Kolkata) then it’s over. I’m happy that we have a chance to play with the humidity here and we can possibly find them tired in the second half due to the humidity of the weather conditions.

“We want to capitalize on the advantage of playing the first game here. Before the away game against Arkadag, we will have the possibility to go to Shillong, where the weather conditions are colder and we’ll have enough time to play, think about the away AFC Challenge League game.

“We need to keep this energy for the home game, because we are in a very good moment of the season performance-wise, and Arkadag are about to start their season. We hope that we can capitalize on our home advantage,” he finished with.

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