Hyderabad: Hyderabad Football Club suffered their first loss of the season when they went down 0-2 against Mumbai City FC in their previous game. However, the experienced coach Manolo Marquez Roca feels the result will not affect their morale going into their next match against Kerala Blasters.
Speaking on the eve of their ISL clash against strugglers Kerala, who are placed at ninth without a win yet, the Spaniard felt Mumbai City FC were a strong team and they were good on the day. “In football, there are three possibilities: win, draw or loss. It is impossible to maintain only one. After losing one game, no team becomes bad. I think the loss against Mumbai does not affect our team for tomorrow’s game. We will go out to play a good game and win tomorrow,” he said.
On being asked about the loss against strong opponents Mumbai and not converting the chances, he said, “I don’t think we created too many chances. I only remember one clear chance from (Mohammad) Yasir one minute before the half time. With the equaliser, the second half would have been different. But with a young and inexperienced side, I am happy with the way they played in the second half.”
Speaking about their opponents Kerala Blasters, he rated the team very high on talent. “For me it is a very good team. They played an open game in the championship against ATK and they didn’t deserve to lose. In the last game, they equalised in injury time. They have got good players and they deserve more points than what they have now. For sure it will be a tough battle,” he added.
When asked about major changes in the upcoming game, he said he does not believe in changing the team because of one loss. “There are a few areas from the Mumbai game where we can improve and change some players maybe. We are not going to make too many tactical changes and we played six games and had only one loss. Can’t change too many things.”
He said talented Indian player Nikhil Poojary will be out of this game owing to injuries. “You don’t win games on revealing who is playing or not. For me, the squad is of 29 players and 28 players were training and only one player was out with injury. All other players are in the contention for a place. Only Nikhil is not in the reckoning because of injury,” he concluded.
Now you can get handpicked stories from Telangana Today onTelegrameveryday. Click the link to subscribe.