Despite watching his side suffer their first defeat in this season's AFC Cup Tuesday, East Bengal coach Marcos Falopa was still pleased with the battling performance of his players as they clawed back with two second-half goals in a 4-2 loss to Kuwait Sports Club.
The Indian side looked like they might be on the wrong end of a battering when Chadi Hammami took advantage of a dreadful error by goalkeeper Gurpreet Singh early in the second half to give the defending champions a 4-0 lead.
But strikes by Uga Okpara and substitute Lalrindika Ralte gave the Indian side two precious away goals and fresh hope that they can still turn the tie around in the return match in Kolkata later this month.
While East Bengal were unbeaten in their previous nine games in the competition, Kuwait SC offered their toughest test yet and Falopa was fearing the worst for his side after the home side raced out to a four-goal lead.
"As I said previously, the match would be very hard, especially as we were playing against an experienced side who have powerful attacking players that managed to create many chances and score four goals against us," said the Brazilian.
"However, what made me happy today is that we managed to make a good comeback as losing 4-2 is better than losing 4-0. This result will give us a big push in order to fight for our chances in the second leg and hopefully we can get a positive result that will help us advance to the final," he said.