After their last encounter against Mumbai City FC, Jamshedpur FC saw their top four ambitions come to a disappointing conclusion and are now looking to make the most out of their remaining fixtures.

In the pre-match conference before tomorrow’s game, coach Antonio Iriondo highlighted the areas where he thought the team came short and spoke about his experience playing in the league and working with youngsters.

On the experience in the ISL this season

In a football way, the experience wasn’t as great as I was thinking at the beginning. We have had a lot of injuries and the plan has been to work hard and try to develop young players who will be great players in the future for the league. In a personal way, my experience in India has been amazing.

On trying something different for the upcoming matches 

Obviously, after the Mumbai match we don’t have any chance. It has been very difficult for us to have a regular starting XI. We have had to change almost every week, try different things because of injuries. We needed to bring players from the reserve team also and put them in the first team. For sure, we are going to see something.

On the experience of working with youngsters

It has been great having them in the team. All of them are very young players. It is their first experience in Hero ISL. So, it is normal that they made some mistakes. It has not been the best for the team in a competitive way. But the development of these players is going to be something great for the team in the future. I am sure that next year, they are going to be very important for the team. Especially the guy on my left (Aniket Jadhav) is going to be a top player in the league for sure.”

Thoughts on the upcoming match against NorthEast United FC

For us, every match is very important. Last match against Mumbai was my 1000th match as a professional head coach. I had a lot of questions from the media in Spain about which game was the most important match I remember from all the matches. The answer was the next match against NorthEast United FC. The important thing for us, as football professionals, is not what you achieve in championships. It is about the game you are playing next. So, the most important game is always the next game. We have to respect every match and we have to enjoy it.

Aniket Jadhav accompanied the coach for the pre-match conference. On being asked about his experience on playing with fellow youngsters he said, “Yes, it is helping a lot (having fellow youngsters in the Jamshedpur squad). First of all, I am getting enough play time. The coach has believed in me a lot and I’m grateful for that. I’ve played with Narender (Gahlot), Amarjit (Singh) and Jitendra (Singh) for more than three years. So, it is easier to play with them.”