East Bengal unveil squad for new season

KOLKATA: East Bengal on Monday unveiled a 34-member squad for the upcoming football season, retaining the crux of the team which had won the Federation Cup and the local league.
Led by new skipper Abhra Mondal, the players walked the ramp with models followed by coach Trevor James Morgan and his support staff at the Calcutta Cricket and Football Club (CC&FC).
A rock band performance enlivened the show towards the end.
The red and gold brigade, who were on the verge of winning the I-League before being pipped to the post by Salgaocar, also retained the successful foreigner trio of Tolgay Ozbey, Uga Okpara and Penn Orji.
Among prominent new players were Khangthan Paite and Charan Rai from Churchill Brothers.
Pune FC full-back Sunil Kumar Junior moved to the Kolkata giants while young goalkeeper Debjit Mazumder was roped in from United Sikkim.
The team was bolstered by the return of Raju Gaikwad and Sunil Kumar who played for Indian Arrows on loan by the All India Football Federation.
Club's ambassador Alvito D Cunha, who was injury plagued for the last couple of seasons, will now be seen as an assistant coach-cum-player while former Tollygunje Agramgami coach Ranjan Choudhury will be Morgan's deputy.
"Consistency is the keyword in football. Our attempt is to be consistent with the team. We will retain the same bunch of players for a longer period now. Our aim is to win the I-League this season," East Bengal Football Secretary Santosh Bhattacharya said.
The Squad: Abhra Mondal (c), Sandip Nandy, Gurwinder Singh, Debjit Majumder, Ravinder Singh, Saumik Dey, Uga Okpara, Nirmal Chhetri, Sunil Kumar, Sunil Kumar Junior, Naoba Singh, Abhishek Das, Saikat Saha Ray, Alivto D'Cunha, B Beikhokhei (Khangthan Paite, Milan Singh, Oji Penn, Reishengmi Vashum, Charan Rai, Subodh Kumar, Sushant Matthew, Sanju Pradhan, Harmonjit Singh Khabra, Tolgay Ozbey, Branco Vincent Cardozo, Biswarup Deb, Budhiram Tudu, Jayanta Pal, Gurpreet Singh, Raju Gaikwad, Mehtab Hossain, Baljit Sahni, Robin Singh.
Coaching Staff: Trevor James Morgan, Ranjan Chowdhury, Atanu Bhattacharjee, Kazi Islam, Rajesh Basak, Rabindra Nath Das, Raju Bose.