EB topple leaders in style

East Bengal had sliced I-League leaders Sporting Clube de Goa as knife through butter. What's more, from Houghton's perspective that is, was that all the goals came from his India players, reports Dhiman Sarkar.

If Bob Houghton had wanted, he could have taken a cab at half-time. By then, East Bengal had sliced I-League leaders Sporting Clube de Goa as knife through butter. What's more, from Houghton's perspective that is, was that all the goals came from his India players.

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Syed Rahim got a brace, his intelligent darting runs inside fetching the maximum, first from a Mehtab Hossain curler from the right and then meeting Sunil Chhetri's smart pass which played him inside and caught the defence by surprise. Nabi's strikes coming on the back of Sunil's header, following one of the many moments of brilliance from Yusif Yakubu before the Ghanaian went out with a minor calf muscle problem.

That all the goals came from the middle of Sporting Clube de Goa's defence could be worrying for the team which lost only for the second time in eight rounds. When Yakubu dinked one for Sunil, the inner defence had not noticed the India striker sneaking in. The goal amid a flurry of corner-kicks Sporting Clube had won early on and after Junior Elijah's wickedly powerful blast crashed into the horizontal, turned the match on its head. Results: East Bengal 3 (Sunil, 12th; Nabi 24th& 30th); Sporting Clube 1 (Khabra, 55th).