Coppell complains about schedule but happy to be home; Zico: Both teams need three points
COPPELL HAS COMPLAINED ABOUT the schedule saying they were playing their first home game after about 3 weeks. But also said he was glad finally playing at home and said,
Having been away for 21 days, again I stress that we're the only team that has to play four away games on the bounce. I don’t think that is right, we travel so much and the training facilities provided to us were very poor, I think that was a major disadvantage running into four games like that. We've now come through those four games, we lost just once but because it was the last game, every game has its significance. Hence when you lose, it’s the end of the world and when you win you think ‘Oh I'm going to be jumping’. We're very happy to be back in Kerala, we enjoy our home ground, we enjoy our home stadium and we enjoy our home crowd. We are delighted to be back here. I hope being back gives a boost for tomorrow night"
Both teams are in contention for the semi final berths. On being asked if he would take a draw in this game and try to win all others, Zico replied,
"No, no never. I always play to win, my philosophy is always to play for a win, I prefer to win a game than draw three games, by draw results you're still dropping points. No matter wherever you play, you play to win. Goa and Kerala are both in a position where we need a win and we both will be playing our best. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it ends up in a draw, but we play to win”
Kerala, with the many draws that their results have ended up in, were being considered as a defensive side. To this notion, Coach Coppell said,
“We can never forget about clean sheets, people I think assume that we spend hours and hours on practicing defending, but we don't. You look at this league, and correct me if I'm wrong but the team at the top (Mumbai City FC) has only scored nine goals. For whatever reason this year there aren’t many goals scored. There are teams that do attack a lot and that's because they have the players to attack. So many teams are playing three at the back, so many teams are playing five in midfield, It’s a tight league"
Coppell continued,
“Hence I can’t see the logic of let's forget defence and just go forward. Football is all about, when you defend 11 people defend, when you attack 11 people attack. I don’t restrain anybody in going forward, we play to our potential but when we play against well organised teams, it can be very hard. We are looking for a few players to explode, I think upfront we're looking for 1-2 players to explode towards the end of the season.”
Previous meeting of the two teams in last year's edition, in Kochi, had ended in a 1-5 victory to FC Goa. If he took that result to look forward with confidence, Zico replied,
"We don't dwell on our past too much, we don’t remind ourselves of the result to boost our confidence. But we do acknowledge our opposition and we will try our best to win the game. We are taking it match by match, a win tomorrow puts us in a better position, hence it is up to us to perform."
Gregory Arnolin, standing at the heart of the FC Goa defence, was also present at the press conference, spoke about the growth of Indian football he has seen so far. He stated,
"I really think that the Indian standards have improved over the years. The quality has increased since the first season I played here, I think we cannot stop now and we must keep working for the league to grow even more. There are a lot of people here with the potential to grow even more"
Arnolin on his side's chances to bounce back after a less ideal start commented,
“I think every year it is a different story, primarily because the work we put in is different every season. I think we will be awarded well at the end of the season because we’re doing everything right and results will come with the work we put in.”
Missing for tonight's game will be the Blasters' marquee Aaron Hughes, who had to return to Northen Ireland to assess the injury he was facing. Commenting on the importance of his miss from the squad Coppell said,
“But, being an international he has to be assessed by the national medical team hence he's travelled to Ireland for that. He's our marquee player and to not have him is a loss, but as one door closes it opens for somebody else. So, someone else is going to come into the team and it's an opportunity that has to be made use of by that player for him to start in that role.”
“Well this is a situation that we thought would never happen. Given his age and having just finished the Euros, we thought he was done with his international days. But Northern Ireland have had injury problems and they called him into the squad. He has a hamstring strain which means that he could have played for us and I would have liked if he had started tomorrow, but even we don’t think he would last the whole 90 minutes”
Coppell, asked to spare his thoughts for the FC Goa team said,
“Obviously a very successful team in the ISL. With six games to go any team who manages to win three out of them could make it to the semi-finals. This is the same for any team right now. That’s a great incentive for any team knowing that there are only six games to go"
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