ISL 2024-25: Bengaluru FC announces six new players during open training session

Spanish attacker Edgar Mendez, Spanish midfielder Alberto Noguera, Argentine striker Jorge Pereyra Diaz and former Punjab FC left-back Mohamed Salah were the other new signings.

Mendez, who arrived for training in a chariot, has made over 150 La Liga appearances with Almeria, Granada and Alaves. | Photo Credit: BFC

Rahul Bheke and Lalthuammawia Ralte were among the six new players unveiled by Bengaluru FC (BFC) at an open training session held at Bangalore Football Stadium here on Sunday.

Spanish attacker Edgar Mendez, Spanish midfielder Alberto Noguera, Argentine striker Jorge Pereyra Diaz and former Punjab FC left-back Mohamed Salah were the other new signings.

BFC, which finished a disappointing tenth in the previous ISL season, will hope that these additions give the team a boost.

Bheke and Ralte have represented BFC in earlier seasons, with the former returning from a successful stint at Mumbai City FC.

Mendez, who arrived for training in a chariot, has made over 150 La Liga appearances with Almeria, Granada and Alaves.

BFC head coach Gerard Zaragoza stated that the squad is now packed with leaders. “We have Bheke, who was captain of Mumbai City. We also have Noguera, Jorge and Almeira, who are leaders on the pitch. And then there is Sunil (Chhetri) and Gurpreet (Sandhu),” Zaragoza said.

Only Hyderabad FC scored fewer goals than BFC in ISL 2023-24, a hole that Zaragoza feels has been filled with the addition of quality strikers.

“Edgar has played over 150 games in La Liga. Edgar is an aggressive, attacking player - this is something we need. We need players to arrive in the box and score lots of goals. We had a lot of arrivals last season, but we could not score goals. With Edgar, Jorge, Sunil and Siva (Sivasakthi Narayanan), we have good strikers to score goals,” Zaragoza said.