“Do you think Ranbir Kapoor will cry?”, a kid asked his father post-Mumbai City FC’s frustrating 1-0 loss to FC Pune City in Thursday’s Indian Super League encounter. One thing is for sure, Mumbai’s co-owner would have been a tad disappointed, given that his side had two golden opportunities to score first on the night.
Mumbai City FC coach Alexandre Guimaraes spoke to the media after the match and expressed his disappointment at his side’s narrow loss, “It’s really a shame that we didn’t take any point because we did all we had to do to get the points. We tried to penetrate the wall they had built in different ways. We had our chances unfortunately, today we didn’t get one in. They played for just one ball,” he said.
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Guimaraes also said that the loss won’t in any way deter them from their objective of entering the playoffs, “This can happen but we are still there in a good position. This was just a reminder for us that it’s not going to be easy to get into the final four. We will have to fight very hard,” he stated.
We were going for a draw in the end, says Mumbai City FC manager
The Costa Rican accepted that his side were aiming to get a draw in the final minutes of the match, a decision that proved to be their undoing on the night.
“In situations like this where we attacked the game but weren’t scoring, the thought was to better get a draw. We played to win 3 points but thought maybe 1 point wasn’t bad,” he explained.
Asked if Mumbai could have attacked more in the first half, given that they were the home side, the Mumbai City FC coach said, “If you see the statistics, our gameplay was more or less the same in both halves. Maybe in the first half we had some better combinations. In the second half, we tried to play more of long balls from the back.”
Guimaraes praises his keeper in spite of error
Eugeneson Lyngdoh scored for Pune from a mistake made by Mumbai’s goalkeeper, Albino Gomes, who failed to hold on to an incoming cross from the left.
Guimaraes didn’t lay blame on his goalkeeper and chose to look at the positives, “Look, he has done extremely well for us. He made some fantastic saves in the other games that allowed us to get very important points. This can happen to any goalkeeper. He knows he has my confidence or else he would have never played today.
“Goalkeepers learn from their mistakes. Now he has to show his character and temperament to get up and continue like he’s been doing before,” he added.
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Leo Costa had to be replaced very early in the match and the coach believes that this was a major setback since he had to make a change so early on.
“Yes, of course it affected us. We had done all the procedures to ensure that he can start and play today. During the games in Chennai and NorthEast, he didn’t feel nothing. Because of that change, we only had 2 cards in our hand,” he concluded.
