The Boss Talks About A Closely Fought First Leg, The Team’s Attitude And The Second Leg At The Fortress…
His opinion on the first half performance…
You know, sometimes football is like this; sometimes you have more possession and some other times you have less. Sometimes you win more second balls, and then sometimes you don’t. NorthEast were playing at home, and gave a little extra in front of their supporters, trying to get the game for them. You could see that the second half was a completely different scenario, and we played cleverly. We went from one side to the other to create the chances to score. I think that it was a nice game to watch with a lot of exciting things happening.
On the message ahead of the second half…
I told my team to be calm in possession. We were losing the final pass at times, and that’s the pass that can break the other team. We have the quality to make that kind of a pass and we have to wait for that. Even with the goal, you saw that Sunil had the tempo, and the time to create that opportunity and pass the ball to Xisco to score from close. That’s the kind of final pass what we have been missing sometimes.
We also had some good counter attacks with Udanta, Sunil and Miku, but it was only the final delivery that was not right. But it happens, so there’s nothing to say about it. We played a good game to come back at least with a draw, but if you look at the second half, I think we deserved to win the game. But we will see what happens at the Kanteerava.
On scoring a crucial away goal…
It was important for us to score in Guwahati, and play with that goal. I think we deserved a better result, but now we have to force a result in Kanteerava. We have won a lot of games at home, so we will work to win the last home game of the season and qualify for the final.
On the team’s ability to score after the hour mark…
I was expecting the first half to be more physical, so that is why we had Barrera and not Xisco on the pitch in the midfield. But once I saw that we have to have better players in midfield to play with the ball, I decided to put Xisco on the pitch. I was happy the way things were going in the second half and it was an accident right at the end.
On the struggles post the international break…
This is a really serious stage of the competition and everybody is focused on our team and the other teams as well. If you see, when we have the full-squad, we have been very competitive and we have been winning important games, but in the last few weeks we have been rotating and preserving some players. We know we can turn this around with a good performance at the Kanteerava, to make a comeback and qualify for the final.
On NorthEast’s performance in the first half…
NorthEast were playing at home and they were trying to win the game with intensity. They took advantage of the situation and the goal was a mistake from our defence. It is clear that we cannot concede from such an easy shot inside that box. After that they just tried to defend and I think they had only a few shots on goal. They are a team which can defend well as you saw last week against Kerala. They stay compact and avoid giving too many chances. We were very close to making the final pass and scoring some more goals. So, for me it should have been a better result for us in the second half.
