Pune FC were held to a hard-fought 1-1 draw by Sporting Goa in an I-League Round-7 encounter at the Balewadi Sports Complex on Saturday.
Speaking at the post-match Press Conference, Pune FC Head Coach Karim Bencherifa gave his views on the game.
When asked whether Pune FC gained one point or dropped two, Coach Bencherifa explained, “I am optimistic and I will like to look at it as the glass is half full. I cannot say whether we dropped points or gained against Sporting. Yes, the result is important. But it is not my only issue. We need to improve in our defence and attack. I think we were okay today. I am satisfied with the intent of the players. We tried to build under the pressure and unlike the last two games, we attacked with a lot of intent.”
Speaking about the second half, he further added, “If you analyse the game, we had four key players in Lalrempuia (Fanai), Arata (Izumi), Mathew (Gonsalves) and Ishfaq (Ahmed). They were constantly feeding the strikers as well as falling back to defend with Luciano (Sabrosa) and Anas (Edathodika). These four players worked very hard in the game. So it was all about attacking and defending quickly. When we started the second half, we were on the back foot before the changes, but after making the changes, we were creating changes. We got two fresh wingers in Prakash and Anthony. We were on the back foot in the first 20-25 minutes in the second half. We were defending deep but also came forward with good attacks.”
Talking about the penalty appeal in the final minutes of the game during which Ryuji Sueoka took a bad knock, Coach Bencherifa said, “Well we have seen some of these clashes been called as penalty. But it is different now. Sueoka did take a bad knock, so we need to assess the situation.”
