Will be supportive to create younger talent in Indian football: East Bengal coach Carles Cuadrat

The Spaniard joined the Red and Gold Brigade in the summer of 2023 and he has orchestrated a mini-revival, helping the team reach the Durand Cup final and also beat rivals Mohun Bagan Super Giant in one of the two Kolkata derbies in the tournament. He has instilled a more aggressive and attacking approach into the team. East Bengal had finished ninth in the last season of ISL and since then, the team has shown a lot of improvements.

Bino George, the Kerala-born East Bengal assistant coach was the main man in charge of the reserve team in the Calcutta Football League. The reserve team put in some incredible performances and ended the League stage top of the table in their own group and remained unbeaten, as per an ISL press release.

Cuadrat has kept an eye on the progress of the reserve team and has promised to test some of the best players from that team in the ISL.

Speaking at the ISL Media Day on the topic of playing East Bengal reserve teams promising youngsters, the East Bengal head coach said, "It is clear that we need to try and help Indian Football. The young talents need opportunity. When I was in Bengaluru, I gave opportunities to players like Suresh Singh to have more experience in the ISL and to get promoted to the national team."

He further added that he also helped players like Nishu Kumar and Rahul Bheke get into the Indian national football team.

"I come from a root at Barcelona, that if the players have quality, they can help the team. It is a question of training, see the talent in training and then help them get implemented into the plan of the team," the Spaniard said.

"I hope that the youngsters can be with us longer and improve as players. I have seen a lot of CFL matches and detected some good talents. We have to learn a lot but we will be supportive to create new talents for Indian Football," he added.

East Bengal FC have signed some good players to revitalise their team this season. The additions of Mandar Rao Desai, Harmanjot Khabra and Prabhsukhan Singh Gill have brought some necessary balance to their squad. Meanwhile, the new foreigners like Borja Herrera and Saul Crespo have strengthened the important positions in the team.

The Red and Gold Brigade start their ISL campaign against Jamshedpur FC in Kolkata and the Spaniard is not getting carried away with his side's form in the Durand Cup and wants them to start afresh in the league.

"I am not going to say the positive (where) we will finish because we have powerful teams in the league. All the teams have been getting great players, trying to go forward with new projects with new coaches," he said.

"It will be an interesting ISL because we will meet a lot of coaches who have been champions in India, be it the Champions of the ISL, Federation Cup, Super Cup etc. They already know how to be competitive in that environment, so that is great for ISL to have so many champion coaches in the competition," he concluded. (ANI)