Molina: Mumbai didn’t have a lot of chances through our defence; Guimaraes is proud of the players and their contribution

A GOOD SEASON CAME TO AN END when Mumbai lost out on their chance to make it to their maiden ISL final. Atletico de Kolkata played a calm game to see off Mumbai who never looked as threatening as they did in the league stages.

Summing up the ride till the semi-finals, Guimaraes said,

“I just have to say that we had a fantastic season. I spoke with the players ahead of the Delhi game as to whether we wanted to finish first or second and I told the players we always play to win for the first place. For Mumbai, I think this is fantastic, to have a chance to play a semi-final and to have this experience of playing a semi-final and giving the fans a chance to experience this,”

Molina looked content with the performance of his side and heaped praises on the effort put in by all players saying,

“I think ATK is doing a great job and the management is working to achieve a common goal and everybody is working in the same direction and people from all positions in the club are doing their best and we are trying to do something good and it is working well and we now have three semi-finals in three years and two finals, and now we will try to achieve a second title in three years,”

Guimaraes continued saying,

“I am proud of my players and we had our chances but unfortunately we did not score and like I said we knew that we have a very tough rival that plays well and knows how to play in the semi-final and that’s why they are in the final two times. It is a learning process for the organisation, for the players and I think we contributed during the whole season with a style of play that everybody enjoyed, and of course we are disappointed as we wanted to get to the final. Today we played with all the means to get there and they defended better in the second half.”

Robert Lalthlamuana was sent off close to the halftime leaving ATK to play with over 50 minutes to play with a man down. On this Molina said,

"To me, to be honest, it is always better to play with 11 players than 10 and today maybe with 10 players we were stronger in defence and Mumbai didn’t have a lot of chances through our defence.”

Forlan missed the game as he served his one match suspension following the red card he recieved in the first leg. If his presence was missed in the second leg, Guimaraes replied saying,

“I think in crucial moments, these kinds of players can help the guys on the pitch to be a little cool. He has contributed well throughout the season,” 

The ATK Coach surprised everyone by not starting key players from the first leg like Hume, Postiga and Doutie. On this strategy, the Spaniard explained,

“I don’t know who was going to play the final and what I tried to do today was to put the best eleven on the pitch and we had to travel to Mumbai, so there was not a lot of time to recover and we had a few players who did not play the last leg and I thought we needed some changes and all of them have been training very hard and we have to see who will play the final as we have to see how the players recover and we will play the best team in the final,” 

If the miss by Chhetri proved to be too costly for Mumbai, Guimaraes chose to not lay the blame on any player and said,

“Like I said earlier, I am very proud of the players, of what they have done in the whole season and this is football and he helped us very much in the final run to the semi-final, so I have nothing to tell him”

Guimaraes continued,

“The organisation have to learn for next season, like we had issues regarding some Bengaluru FC players and then Gaston Sangoy got injured, so the organisation has to analyse very well as to what we have done that took us to the semi-final and what they have to do to get the future team to the semi-final and the final.” 
 

Molina, on the post-match bust up between players commented,

“I don’t know what happened and who started the fight. What happened was bad and we don’t have to fight and I don’t like that and I could not watch what happened as there was a commotion and that was not good,” 

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