After a short three-week international break, Pune FC are back in action in the I-League. Currently second in the standings with 14 points, Pune FC enter a hectic period which sees them play a game every four or five days beginning with the Maha-Derby on Sunday.
We caught up with Coach Karim Bencherifa in Mumbai for a quick chat about the upcoming games, his views on the team and the preparations on the sidelines of a training session at the Cooperage Ground.
Excerpts;
We head into a hectic 40-odd day period where we will be playing eight I-League games. How is the team preparing for the tough period?
Regarding the schedule, I have already had a discussion with the players. They do have a fair idea about the compactness of the fixtures and I don’t want to give a long term target to them or to anybody. I don’t want to put any pressure on the team and the players as of now. We want to take it game by game. And for now, the most important game is the one against Mumbai FC on Sunday.
But, I do discuss the upcoming games with the players. Especially, the ones now, and those in the month of April. They will be very decisive and important because by then we will know where we stand in the league. That is why during the three-week break, we had a good camp in Mumbai after our last game against Royal Wahingdoh. The preparation was not just for this game, but for the remaining season. So we will be very much prepared.
We will be missing a few players for the upcoming games due to the Under-23 National Camp. Your views on it…
Well of course, we are missing a few key players. I know that during the month of March, when the Under-23 National camp is on, the rule of the U-23 player is not implemented in the I-League. However, I feel that it is still not fair for Pune FC, because there are other clubs who don’t care for their youth teams and its development like we do. But for us, in every game we play four or five U-23 players. They are a part of the playing eleven, and when they are not around it is a kind of loss. Also, I am really disappointed that we lost a player with quality in Anthony D’Souza to injury. I feel really bad because he will be out for a long time.
Speaking about overcoming these challenges, how are the other players stepping up?
We have learnt a long way back to deal with issues like these where we miss players in numbers. There were moments when we had many injuries too. In the last few games we always had two to three players absent. In this game there will be no exceptions for the reasons we just mentioned. But we are a team, a squad. I spent a lot of energy and so did the support staff to make everybody prepared. From the first player to the 30th player, we’ve prepared them all.
In fact, we are also preparing four Under-19 talents who will be coming from there. They have already started training with the senior team as I want them to gradually integrate into the system. Therefore I am not overtly concerned about the players who are not available, because I have faith in the players who are there and available. We will definitely overcome the challenge.
