Tuesday , March 19 2024

Bengaluru FC coach Albert Roca: We had enough quality going into extra time!

After a thrilling victory over rivals Mohun Bagan, Bengaluru FC lifted the 38th Federation Cup. Blues’ Boss, Albert Roca after the triumph spoke about the final, the upcoming AFC Cup game and more…

On his assessment of the game…

We had a plan and we were able to follow it. Our objective was to stop any attacks, play counter-attacking football and create as many chances as possible and I think it worked perfectly. We played without two important players Sunil Chhetri and Cameron Watson but the squad showed that they can put up a good fight and never gave up until the last minute. Today the team has shown that even in case of adverse circumstances they can get the job done.

On the two goals being disallowed…

The first goal was probably offside, but the second scored by Juanan was a goal and we were disappointed with the decision. I think we have done really well in our set pieces and as you saw we could have scored off one, but unfortunately it was disallowed, otherwise we wouldn’t have had to play extra time. Football is a difficult sport, sometimes referees can make mistakes, I’m sure it wasn’t done purposely. The opposition created a few chances too, luckily Amrinder kept the ball out, it would have been very unlucky had they scored.

In extra time, I think we had enough quality going forward, created a lot of chances with Cornell Glen and C.K. Vineeth and we were lucky to have scored and won the title.

On what was different in this game as compared to the group stage game against Mohun Bagan…

Our objective in this game was to keep control of the situation by holding onto the ball and finding gaps in their defence. We knew that they have really good strikers, but if we held on to the ball long enough we could find spaces in their defence to create chances and counter attack at the right time. I think today we were well prepared for the game, and everything worked as planned. The players were very focused and ensured we did not concede a lot of chances. A lot of credit should be given to our defenders who were able to close their players down and ensure we kept away any danger.

On whether the team is now confident to overcome Maziya on May 31 in the AFC Cup…

We were unfortunate to have lost two more strikers due to injury. Udanta’s injury in the final means it would be difficult for him to feature against Maziya, similarly Vineeth too had some discomfort towards the end of the game. Cornell Glen on the other hand will be unable to play that tournament and Marjan Jugovic has just undergone surgery and will need time to recover. So we need to find solutions to those problems.

However, we are confident that we can get the job done. We will be playing at home, that gives us an advantage and we will do everything we can to go through to the next round of the tournament.

About Arunava Chaudhuri

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