What started off as a slow game, took a turn for worry when Hyderabad FC scored in the 39th minute. The second half was a push and pull for both the teams and in the dying minutes of the game, Noe Acosta’s free-kick was converted into an equaliser by Sumeet Passi bringing the team’s final away game to a thrilling conclusion. 

At the post-match press conference, Head Coach, Antonio Iriondo shared his thoughts on the encounter.

On tonight’s game and the team’s overall performance

It was a match of two teams that are out of contention for the semi-finals. Both teams didn’t give up. We are struggling without a lot of our great players. So, it is very difficult for a team to play without these players. However, I have to be happy with the performance of the young players because they are trying and they are improving. After this match, they are going to have a good feeling. We controlled the ball but didn’t create too many chances. On the other hand, Hyderabad FC have good foreign attackers. So, every time they got close to our box, they created a real danger to our team. Their players have a lot of intensity. We were closer to the penalty box more times than them, but we didn’t look like creating danger. They were more dangerous.

The reason behind the substitution of Sergio Castel

It can be a little strange when you are losing, and you take out a striker and put a midfielder on the pitch. But the thing is that Sergio was injured. He was in a lot of pain and we didn’t have any strikers on the bench. All our strikers were injured or suspended. So, we tried to make the field wider and tried to make space at the back.