East Bengal have scored 13 and conceded one, and Mohun Bagan still win Group A
Six points, 13 goals scored, one conceded, and second place. East Bengal’s Durand Cup group is finished, and Mohun Bagan have already won it with a game to spare.
Aug 9, 2026
East Bengal put five past South United at the Vivekananda Yuba Bharati Krirangan on 7 August and closed their 135th Durand Cup group stage at a canter. It has not moved them off second place in Group A. It could not have. Mohun Bagan are already through as group winners with a game still to play.
One goal, one night, and the group was gone
Mohun Bagan beat East Bengal 1-0 in the match that opened the tournament on 25 July, Sahal Abdul Samad arriving unmarked at the far post in the second half. Everyone in a four-team group plays everyone once, so that head-to-head result sits above goal difference in the tiebreakers. Mohun Bagan have six points from two games and East Bengal six from three. Even if Mohun Bagan lose their last match they stay ahead, because of one tap-in on the opening night.
For Antonio Lopez Habas that is a particularly awkward piece of arithmetic. The Durand Cup is his first assignment since taking the East Bengal job for 2026-27, and the club that has cost him top spot in Group A is the one he used to coach.
The 5-0 was as one-sided as it reads
Dani Ramirez opened it from distance in the sixth minute. Mohamad Rashid headed in a corner in the 24th, and East Bengal were two up at the interval without being asked a serious question. Hardik Bhatt made it three in the 73rd, Bipin Singh four in the 81st, and David Lalhlansanga finished it in stoppage time.
South United are a Bengaluru club who play in the BDFA Super Division, the Karnataka state league, where they have finished runners-up four times. They had already lost 8-0 to Mohun Bagan at the same stadium on 4 August. Manvir Singh scored in the fourth, 22nd and 60th minutes that night. Suhail Ahmad Bhat got two, Alberto Rodriguez and Rahul Bheke one each, and the South United captain turned another into his own net.
Two games against the Kolkata clubs, 8-0 and 5-0. South United still go out with three points and a piece of history: their 2-0 win over CISF Protectors was the first victory the club has ever recorded in the Durand Cup, and it accounts for both goals they scored all group.
A two-seat queue and five teams still playing
The format leaves almost no room to fix a bad night. Six groups of four, one round of fixtures, and the quarter-finals on 16 and 17 August take the six group winners plus the two best second-placed sides. Two seats, five other runners-up in contention, and East Bengal’s contribution to the argument is now closed.
Six points with 13 scored and one conceded is close to the strongest hand a runner-up can hold here. The trouble is that it is a finished hand. The group stage runs until 13 August, and East Bengal spend those days as spectators: Group B closes on 12 August with Mohammedan SC against Indian Army, Group D the same day, and Groups C, E and F all finish on 13 August, the Shillong derby between Shillong Lajong and Langsning among them.
Mohun Bagan’s Monday
Mohun Bagan play CISF Protectors at the Kishore Bharati Krirangan on Monday, 10 August, at 4pm IST. CISF have played twice, lost twice, conceded ten and scored none. The result changes nothing about who wins Group A, though it does decide whether Mohun Bagan arrive in the quarter-finals having scored nine in the competition or something closer to East Bengal’s 13.
Piling up goal difference is the only lever available to a side in East Bengal’s position, so they pulled it twice, hard, against the two weakest teams in front of them. It has not changed first place and it was never going to. What it may still do is carry them into a knockout round where the Indian Super League sides finally have to play each other instead of state-league opposition, which would make that 5-0 the most useful pointless win of their season. On the football, they have earned that. On the maths, it is out of their hands until Thursday.