East Bengal head coach Antonio Lopez Habas thinks Al Shorta are the favourites in their group ahead of their AFC Champions League Two encounter on Tuesday (October 13).

The Kolkata giants will take on the Iraqi outfit at the Salt Lake Stadium, and as they play them, Habas seems to be a bit more pragmatic in terms of his assessment.

“We only have two injured players. We have to compete, as Al Shorta are the favourites in the group. They have very good players. But the only difference is that East Bengal play in Kolkata. We have to use this to win the match, and I understand that the opponent is very good,” Habas said at the pre-match press conference on Monday.

Foreign Players are getting Closer

But the East Bengal coach believes two of his foreign strikers are getting closer to playing full minutes and will be integrating with more minutes as the weeks progress.

“[Ake Arnaud]Loba and Lukasz [Zwolinski] have only had nine days of training sessions. I have a lot of confidence in both players. Every day, their possibilities grow, and the idea is to give them more players,” he added.

The Spanish coach also admits despite having a full quota of foreign players, they don’t have any advantage in this match.

“No, sincerely, no, we don’t have any advantage for this match. It doesn’t matter if we have seven foreign players, as you have to play all of them. We have good Indian players and will have to go with that,” continued the Spaniard.

When asked about balancing ISL and AFC competition, the East Bengal coach says, “All competitions have different aspects. We have to play as per demand for tomorrow.”

Two halves in Football Never Similar

And ahead of their encounter against Al Shorta, Habas has a clear message as he believes they can’t repeat the same mistakes as they did in the last match against Al Hussein.

“We entered with not much confidence in this tournament, which showed in the 2nd half [vs Al Hussein]. But for this match, I hope it will be different. In football, the two halves are never similar. It depends on injuries, referee and many other things. You never know how you’ll start and finish,” Habas concluded.