An injury time goal former Aizawl midfielder Laldanmawia Ralte saved the blushes of the Kolkata giants...

Laldanmawia Ralte scored the solitary goal of the match from the spot late into injury time to hand East Bengal a narrow 1-0 victory over Aizawl FC in the quarter-final clash of Super Cup on Sunday, in Bhubaneswar.

Khalid jamil chose to stick to his winning combination and went with the same starting XI that won 2-1 against Mumbai City FC. Ubaid C.K. started in goal, with a back four comprising of Samad Mallick, Eduardo Ferreira, Gurwinder Singh and Lalram Chullova. Ugandan midfielder Khalid Aucho slotted in as a defensive midfielder with Cavin Lobo and Mahmoud Al-Amna in front of him. Katsumi Yusa and Laldanmawia ralte manned the wings whereas, Dudu Omagbemi led the attack.

Santosh Kashyap made two changes to the side that trumped Chennaiyin in tie-breakers after the match ended 2-2 after extra-time. Arup Debnath was replaced by Lalawmpuia in goal and Lalkhawpuimawia was relegated to the bench in favour of Lalmuan Kima.

East Bengal started the game in ascendency, and the first significant chance of the game fell for Dudu who was denied by some brilliant goalkeeping after the Nigerian skipped his marker and got a feeble touch to the lobbed delivery by Katsumi from just outside the penalty box.

Referee Ramaswamy Coimbatore took a controversial call when he decided to wave away Amna's call for a penalty after the Syrian was clipped from behind by Jaryan. Replays showed that the former Aizawl midfielder was indeed pulled back by the outstretched leg of the opponent skipper.

East Bengal kept producing chances as the attacking trio of Dudu, Amna and Katsumi were combining well to run behind Aizawl's defense. Around the half-hour mark Samad showed that he has pace to burn when the right back showed a clean pair of heels to his opposite nummber and served the ball on a platter for Dudu who failed to tap in from sniffing distance of the goal.

On the other hand, Aizawl goth the first sight of goal when Saighani and Mawia played some fantastic one touch football in midfield and released Ionescu who had acres of space in front of him to have a crack at goal. The Romanian rifled a bullet shot which went whiskers awy from the near post and crashed at the wrong side of the netting.

Although East Bengal dominated proceedings and carved out a fair number of chances, the Red and Golds were far from being clinical in front of goal, which meant that both sides went into the tunnel with the scoreboard unchanged.

Dudu's profligacy in front of goal continued in the second-half as well as the 32-year old failed to find the target as Lalwampuia got the better of him in an one-on-one situation, after midfield magician Amna released him with a defense splitting through ball.

Aizawl started on a positive note and started making inroads in the attacking third. Ubaid remained rooted to his spot when Mawia decided to try his luck from the edge of the box but his effort went inches away from the far post, much to the relief of the Keralite.

Both sides kept creating chances but none of them were potent enough to question the goalkeepers.

The game suddenly came to life in injury time when both sides had the opportunity to kill the game.