Guimaraes says important result as they did not lose ;Zico: We could have won the game

 TEAMS CAME OUT ATTACKING and we saw some great combination plays. Good defensive shows and some sturdy goalkeeping kept the result goalless. FC Goa are now off the bottom most position in the points table. Mumbai failed to capitalise the chance to become league leaders.

Speaking at the post match conference, Mumbai Head Coach, Guimaraes was not too disheartened with the point and said,

"I said to you guys here yesterday that both coaches like to play attacking football. We came here to take away three points and we are going away with one point, so we are still there in the top four. When we are not going to win, we must not lose. It’s good the players understood that. This result is important today"

Only victories could help the cause of FC Goa but just a point now just reduced their chances to qualify for the playoffs. Talking with reporters at the post match conference, Zico shared his thoughts about the game saying,

"As a coach I had to change my team and I had a lot of other alternatives to do it, as you know Joffre could not play 90 minutes, so I decided to play him in the last 30 minutes as you can see we had many opportunities, but unfortunately the goals did not come. Because of our mistakes, lots of wrong passes, sometimes in the distance of one metre or two metres…this left us open for counter-attack. I do not regret the team formation. Of course, we took a lot of risk against a team like Mumbai with Norde, Chettri, and Forlan . We too had a lot of chances with Robin and Julio Cesar, we could have won the game… I want to thank my players and all the fans that came to support us,"

Chhetri, who has started in last two games since joining the squad, missed a couple of chances to get Mumbai the lead. On Chhetri's performance, Guimaraes was not judgemental in his assesment of the Indian national team captain and said,

"I think he is doing fine and it is not easy to join the team and get synchronised with the other players’ movements straight away. So, he is contributing and as we play more he is going to get better and he will score,” 

The current edition has not been a goal fest as the earlier ones. On this Zico shared,

"The teams realise the competition, so they don't open too much. They play a little more at the back and wait for the counter-attack. I think our team just needed to adjust our aim, we had so many opportunities not only in this game but in so many games.”

Guimaares's spoke his views on the same subject saying,

"Unfortunately, sometimes it happens. Even 1-0 is good enough to get you maximum points. However, the kind of quality players that we have, the number of goals will soon be bigger.”

FC Goa struggling to get their act together in the last game, had a golden chance to pull off a late winner but were denied by the Mumbai keeper, Amrinder. On a night where both keepers did well, Zico acknowledged the same saying,

"We have to give credit to the goalkeepers of both teams. They played very well; they defended a lot of balls, so congratulations to both of them"

Mumbai Next game: They play Kerala Blasters at home on November 19.
FC Goa Next game: They play Atlético de Kolkata at home on November 24.

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