Arunava about Football A look at football & the world through my eyes!
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Jamshedpur FC Head Coach Scott Cooper spoke to the media ahead of the all-important clash against Hyderabad FC.
On his view on opponents…
I see it as a game that both teams need to win. Therefore, both teams and staff are under pressure to deliver points. You don’t need to hide away from that. It’s a must-win game for fans, owners, coaches, players, and both teams. It’s the same as every other match. We are trying our best to get back to the winning ways. The team is training hard so hopefully we start from here. We are looking forward to a good game. I think we probably played the worst against Hyderabad FC in the previous encounter. We’ve played some very good games and we’ve got nothing against Hyderabad FC. They were better than us in the first half of that game. They came to Jamshedpur and played very good football. I like watching Hyderabad FC play. I think they’ve got a nice passing and possession game. It’s modern football. You can see the influence of coaches like Conor Nestor. He’s a very good coach and I’m sure in time everybody will see that. So, reflecting on that last game, it was a free kick that won the game. It was a fantastic free kick. It’s very difficult for a team or a coach to lose a game. They’ve suffered a couple of those but make no mistakes about it Hyderabad FC can play. They play well. If you ask me to rate their football philosophy or the way they play? I appreciate Hyderabad FC as much as I do for any team in the league. We’re very similar. They like to keep possession. There’s a nice philosophy of football you can identify with. The end product for them is like us. I think we’ve been in a few more narrow defeats but both teams are in a similar situation. It’s not that they’re being outplayed, probably not getting the run, maybe the odd decision or two. I like the control possession. I like seeing that compared to some other teams that just go route one and play direct football. If Rei hadn’t scored that goal in Jamshedpur and the same happened in the game against East Bengal, this team lost to a cheeky silver free kick by the end. How often is he going to do that? So they’ve been on the receiving end a little bit. If you consider everything, and you look at football a little bit of bad luck and interesting decisions. We can say from the ISL officials, it’s not going to happen. If you consider all that, we’ve lost six games by a single goal. At least three or four of those games, we had a justifiable argument that we should have won the game. Either we missed chances, or there was an official decision that destroyed us, and it wasn’t fair. So I don’t look at this club as struggling. I look at them as a good footballing team. I haven’t found the right path yet, in terms of Hyderabad FC’s first half against us. It’s up to them now to demonstrate that performances are okay.
On the last match performance…
We can say by the locker room, that’s all okay if the work rate will be at a level in Bangalore, to the frenzy of almost desperation football that gave us chances. That wasn’t real football at all. We got chances. The keeper made two saves with the crossbar. They were not developed chances so I don’t care how the players took it. To be honest, I don’t care if they took it well or not. You have to do your job. There’s no point in thinking about that. Do your job and do it well. We’re proud of the football we’ve played. Proud of it. When you lose all your games by one goal and if you just drop the work rate a little bit then you’re never going to get past that margin and it will keep happening. We have to find extra design. That’s what we’re looking for from the team.
On tomorrow’s game…
We will try to play a good game of football and hopefully, we will win too. We believe in our philosophy and will address the areas where we feel we need to improve. We play the way I know we can play. Trust me, I don’t think what’s done is done, so what we are focusing on is to win and work there, so hopefully, I hope, we work hard and we play our football.
