«Arkadag» football players reached the semi-finals of the AFC Challenge League, having won the Indian «East Bengal» in the quarter-finals.

The first match of these rivals a week ago in Kolkata ended with the victory of the two-time champion of Turkmenistan – 1:0. The return match took place today in the «smart» city of Arkadag, which hosted an international match for the first time.

On this occasion, a festive atmosphere reigned in the stands of the stadium, which was filled to capacity with 10 thousand spectators, in anticipation of another victory of the team, which forms the backbone of the national team of Turkmenistan.

The match started discouragingly for the home team. The very first attack in the 1st minute of «East Bengal» ended with a goal. And it all started with a passage along the right side of Dimitrios Diamantakos. Entering the penalty area, he struck from an acute angle. Goalkeeper Rasul Charyyev deflected the ball to Rafael Messi Bouli, who sent it from close range into the unprotected corner of the goal.

Vladimir Bayramov's men rushed to recoup. However, they never came up with any real threats. The visitors, on the contrary, counterattacked rarely, but very dangerously. In the 17th minute, they could have doubled their lead when Dimitrios Diamantakos made a quick dash down the centre, but his low shot from 22 meters hit the post, and Richard Celis was unable to finish off the rebound. 

In the 29th minute, the «East Bengal» players missed another real opportunity to build on their success when one player attacked the goal twice from close range. But his first shot hit a defender, and the second hit the goalkeeper. 

In the 33rd minute, the Indian team was left with ten men on the field after Lalchungnunga received a second yellow card for a foul on Yazgylych Gurbanov. But even in the minority, the Indian Super Cup winner continued to create scoring chances.  One of them, in the 52nd minute, almost ended in a goal after a pass by D. Diamantakos, which was finished with a header by R. Selis. But the ball went wide of the goal.

As the end of the second half approached, «Arkadag» stepped up its game. In one of the attacks, Sauvik Chakrabarti brought down Shanazar Tirkishov in his penalty area, and in the 89th minute, Altymyrat Annadurdyyev, who came on as a substitute after the break, converted the penalty awarded by the Lebanese referee Sheikh Ahmad Alaeddin. In the 8th minute of added time, after a great pass from his partner, he scored the second goal from 13 meters, bringing the champion of Turkmenistan a comeback victory - 2:1.

Having beaten «East Bengal» 3:1 on aggregate, «Arkadag» reached the semi-finals in the year of its debut in the AFC Challenge League, where on the 9th to 16th of April it will play two games with the winner of the pair Al-Arabi (Kuwait) - Al-Seeb (Oman).  Let us remind that the first match of these rivals in Kuwait ended with a minimal victory for Al Arabi – 1:0.

The AFC Challenge League is the third most important club tournament in Asia, in which teams of a weaker level participate compared to the participants of the elite AFC Champions League and AFC Champions League-2. It was established for ambitious teams to demonstrate their football talents.