Three changes Antonio Habas can bring to East Bengal's playing style

Former Mohun Bagan coach will now be set to wear the Red and Gold shirt

East Bengal have made a major reshuffling to their system ahead of the 2026-27 season with the arrival of Antonio Habas as their new head coach. With Oscar Bruzon opting to leave the club at the end of the 2025-26 season, the Torchbearers opted to rope in someone with a lot of experience in managing in the Indian Super League (ISL) and with decades of coaching experience around the globe.

With East Bengal also poised to compete in an Asian competition alongside the ISL, Habas has been brought to ensure they can maintain sustained success all while defending their ISL title. The Spanish coach has been working in the ISL since its first-ever campaign, having racked up well over 100 matches in the competition as a coach.

He also helped the likes of ATK as well as Mohun Bagan win multiple times, being the only coach to win three ISL titles in their career.

Antonio Habas, however, has a different football philosophy as compared to what Oscar Bruzon brought to the table. He is expected to make a few tweaks to East Bengal’s playing style, mostly to preserve their strengths and ensure they can deal with pressure better.

Here, we look at the three possible changes Habas can bring to East Bengal’s playing style.

3. Better wing-play threat

Antonio Habas likes his side to have a pragmatic nature to their playing style, but he really does love utilizing the best of his wingers and wide players. As proven in his time at Mohun Bagan, the Spanish gaffer adores wingers who are able to work hard for the team and go up and down the pitch to help them prosper.

He might also love working with the East Bengal wingers in that sense, because the Torchbearers have some efficient wingers who are ready to grind it out for their team’s success.

As a result, the Torchbearers might see an improvement in their wing-play and in terms of moving the ball through the wide areas under the experienced Spanish gaffer. East Bengal might look to create more chances by moving the ball out wide, giving the wingers or wing-backs the chance to take on defenders, get into dangerous positions and putting in inviting crosses into the middle.

This can add another dimension to East Bengal’s attack, making them relatively more unpredictable and entertaining to watch under the Spanish coach.

2. Less possession-based football

Under Oscar Bruzon, East Bengal loved to hoard about the ball possession in the majority of their matches and remain in total control of games as well. He liked them to keep a hold of the ball and be patient with their build-up play, frustrating opponents and causing mistakes to happen.

However, that might get changed under Antonio Habas – who isn’t really the biggest fan of dominating ball possession. He likes his teams to be much more efficient when it comes to being quick in moving the ball forward and creating chances than playing a ton of passes in the build-up play.

As a result, East Bengal can now opt to concede possession more often in matches – allowing their opposition side to keep the ball and look for opportunities to steal away possession when they’re vulnerable and hit them on the break.

Of course, East Bengal will need to be extremely resilient defensively in order to thrive without the ball possession in their midst – but that can also allow them to pounce on mistakes of opponents and being much more prolific when it comes to converting their chances.

1. Enhanced counter-attacking threat

In the 2025-26 ISL campaign, East Bengal played some entertaining attacking football and finished the campaign with 30 goals in 13  matches – the most for any teams in the campaign. However, only a few of their goals were actually genuinely exciting counter-attacking goals – which was mostly because Bruzon liked his players to control possession and be smart with their build-up play.

That can now change under Habas, who will be determined to make the Torchbearers a much more dangerous counter-attacking threat going forward.

East Bengal’s attacking players will be trained to be smart with their build-up in the transitions, being quick in moving the ball from defence into attack to take opponents by surprise. He’ll urge his players to be smarter with their counter-attacking tactics to catch the opposition defenders by surprise and force them into mistakes.

If Habas can make his side a well-oiled machine on counter-attacks, they can be a major force to be reckoned with in the 2026-27 season and score many exciting goals on the transitions.

For more updates, follow Khel Now on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube; download the Khel Now Android App or IOS App and join our community on Whatsapp & Telegram.