Arunava about Football A look at football & the world through my eyes!
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Bengaluru FC head coach Marco Pezzaiuoli gave his thoughts on the Blues’ defeat of Maziya S&RC, The importance of youth development and more…
On the defeat of Maziya…
It was a great game to watch, with the way we played right from the first second till the end. We had a good tempo all through the game, and we did it with young players on the pitch. It is not easy for the team to perform when we know that we don’t have the chance to go through to the next round.
Despite that, the players did the job, playing good offensive football. There was good pressing and counter-pressing, the defending was great and apart from creating a lot of chances we also managed to score the goals. For a young team like ours, it’s a good sign and it was a great performance overall.
On the players that impressed…
The boys played a great game against Maziya. From our first game against Tribhuvan Army FC to last night’s match, we’ve been getting better. It’s difficult to pick one player as the best from last night. Udanta [Singh] was the official player of the match and he worked hard throughout.
Leon [Augustine], Udanta and Cleiton [Silva] all put in a great shift from the beginning. Then when we brought on new players in the second half, including two new strikers, they also worked very hard. We scored many goals and I am very happy with the entire team’s performance.
On the importance of investing in young players…
In terms of Indian football, I am still very young. But since I arrived I have seen a good quality of players in the country, a good mix of young and experienced players. The clubs in India are investing more and more in young players now. You’ll see the results in the future, maybe not in one or two years but the results will definitely come.
I cannot tell you how long it’ll take for Indian football to reap the benefits of investing in the youth, but for sure, when you invest in young people, you will see the results sooner or later.
On the skipper not clocking any minutes last night…
Sunil [Chhetri] has played till the game against Bashundhara Kings, which is three games in the space of nine days for him. After this, he’s also going to the national team. As I said earlier, we have a great spirit in the team and a lot of good players, and others were given the chance to play yesterday.
