List of foreign East Bengal FC players

He did so after the club sent out their starting eleven with the notable exclusion of defender Sailesh Bose, who was dropped from the squad for undisclosed reasons when they were about to face Mohun Bagan in the Coochbehar Cup semi-final on 28 July 1920.

He, along with Raja Manmatha Nath Chaudhuri, Ramesh Chandra Sen and Aurobinda Ghosh, formed East Bengal on 1 August 1920.

There have been one hundred seventy five foreign players to play for East Bengal to date from forty-nine different countries, with thirty of them from Nigeria, the most from any single nation.

The earliest recorded foreign player was the prince of Nepal, Major General Madan Shumsher Jung Bahadur Rana, who donned the East Bengal jersey and played as a center-forward in an exhibition match against the Press Club Team on 4 July 1938.

Extremely ill because of the inhuman exhaustion he suffered while running away from his country, a frail-looking Pugsley asked East Bengal club officials to allow him to try out for their team.

team lodged a complaint with the Indian Football Association (IFA) immediately after the match against East Bengal over their fielding the Pakistani players.

[20] East Bengal challenged this decision and took the IFA to court after receiving a letter from the PFF president, Dr. A. M. Malik on 25 October 1953,[22] and had their suspension revoked.

[37] Emeka was instrumental in leading East Bengal to the 1986 IFA Shield title, including a famous 3–1 victory against Nigeria's Leventis United in the semi-finals.

[8][42][43] In 1988, East Bengal signed former Argentine international Julian Camino, who featured for the Argentina national side in the 1983 Copa América.

[43][50][51] In 1996–97, during the inaugural National Football League season, the club recruited Ulf Johansson from Sweden, Dev Narayan Chaudhary of Nepal,[52] Chima Okorie, and Kelechi Okorie—Chima's younger brother and former AFC Bournemouth and Kenyan international Sammy Omollo.

[60] Jackson left after 2001, but Musah stayed and led East Bengal to a plethora of trophies between 2002 and 2004, with two back-to-back National League titles in 2002–03 and 2003–04.

[62] During that period, the East Bengal club featured several Brazilian recruits like former Santos defender Douglas Silva,[31] former Gremio forward Gilmar da Silva[63] and former Vasco da Gama forward Cristiano Júnior,[31] who became the top scorer with 15 goals as East Bengal lifted the 2003–04 National League title.

[33] He was voted as the best defender of the 2012–13 I-League[71] and played an instrumental role as East Bengal reached the semi-finals of the 2013 AFC Cup unbeaten.

[80] Former South Korean U-20 international Do Dong Hyun[81] signed in 2015 and became a fan favourite during his short stay with the club after scoring four goals in the Kolkata Derby.

[87] The club also recruited Enrique Esqueda,[88] who was a U-17 World Cup winner with Mexico and represented the Mexico national team at the 2015 Copa America,[89] and Spanish defender Borja Gomez Perez,[90] who had previously played in the La Liga with Granada alongside another Spanish forward Jaime Santos Colado[91] as they finished runners-up in the 2018–19 I-League.

[105] Danny Fox became the third foreign player to be announced officially as the captain of the East Bengal club after Chima Okorie (1990–91) and Suley Musah (2003–04).

[62][106] In 2021–22 season, the club replaced all of the foreigners and announced the signings of Amir Dervišević, Tomislav Mrcela, Franjo Prce, Daniel Chima Chukwu, Darren Sidoel and Antonio Perošević.

[107] In the January window, the club had bought in three more players Marcelo Ribeiro,[108] Francisco José Sota[109] and Nepali international Ananta Tamang.