Kolkata : City football giants East Bengal on Friday named Biswajit Bhattacharya as their new coach for the forthcoming season. Bhattacharya would have a one-year stint, club officials announced here. Bhattacharya previously coached rival city powerhouses Mohun Bagan and Kochi-based Viva Kerala. He was recently the coach of city club George Telegraph SC in the Calcutta Football League.
As a player, he featured for the national team in the 1984 Nehru Gold Cup where he scored a brilliant goal against Poland and the Asian Cup and was known as a prolific striker.
His playing career was cruelly cut-short by a road accident. Welcoming him back to the club, president Pranab Dasgupta handed him a bouquet and gifted him a scarf adorning the traditional red and gold colours of the club.
“He has played five years for us and a year less for (arch-rivals) Mohun Bagan, so I believe he has a soft corner for us,” Dasgupta said. “We have offered him a one-year contract,” Debabrata Sarkar, a senior official of the club, said.
Bhattacharya said: “My first and foremost priority is to help the team be like a family, a well-knit unit. Whenever you form a strong bond within a unit, you get results, that is precisely what I will try and do.”
Bhattacharya said the next “big challenge” was to win the Calcutta Football League (CFL) for a record-matching sixth consecutive time.
