East Bengal vs Altyn Asyr AFC Champions League 2: Altyn Asyr FC register a narrow 3-2 victory over the Red & Gold Brigade in Kolkata

Turkmenistan side Altyn Asyr FC beat East Bengal FC 3-2 in the Preliminary 1 tie of the AFC Champions League Two (ACL Two) at the Salt Lake Stadium on Wednesday. East Bengal took the lead but went down 3-1 early in the second half. The Red & Gold Brigade tried their best but couldn't overturn the result. Carles Cuadrat will be very upset with this result at home and they are set to play in the AFC Challenge Cup later this year.

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AFC Champions League 2: What happened in the game?

East Bengal found the back of the opposition net in the opening seventh minute of the tie. East Bengal showed the intent and the effort to invade the opposition box at regular intervals. Nandhakumar Sekar delivered a beautiful cross and David connected with a fine header but the Altyn-Asyr goalkeeper Batyr Babayev blocked the effort. The ball rebounded back to the East Bengal forward, who made no mistake with his tap-in.

The Turkmenistan side found the equalizer in the 17th minute. Myrat Annayev scored for his side and it was a statement of a goal from the underdogs of this fixture. Altyn-Asyr made it 2-1 in the 27th minute off a fine free-kick conversion from Selim Nurmyradov.

Myrat Annayev's effort was tapped home by Mihail Titov to create a two-goal cushion for Altyn-Asyr in the 52nd minute. East Bengal were in the mud and they needed something huge to turn the things. Spanish midfielder Saul Crespo showed some fine skills to dribble past a couple of Asyr defenders and finally curled it past the opponent goalkeeper to make it 2-3 for East Bengal.

The Red & Gold Brigade almost got the equalizer in the 80th minute but the Brazilian forward Cleiton Silva was disallowed by the referee for an infringement. They had to take the loss despite a good second-half performance.