ISL 2016: FC Pune City showed immense intensity in defeat says assistant manager Miguel

Pune narrowly lost to their Maharashtrian rivals (Image Courtesy: ISL)

Mumbai City FC avenged last season's derby defeat to FC Pune City as the Blues ran out winners on Monday with a 1-0 victory in the ISL game.

Matias Defederico scored the winner in the 68th minute with a low drive that beat Edel at his right corner post to give Mumbai the lead. In the post-match press conference, FC Pune City assistant coach Miguel reflected on his team's performance and rued his team's missed chances.

On what went wrong in the first game of the season, Miguel  said, "We didn't play to our full potential and it was a typical first game of the season where we fell short of the opposition. We had 3-4 chances that should have been enough to get us back in the game but at the end of the day, we didn't do enough to earn at least a point in our first game.”

It looked like Pune lacked their manager Antonio Habas on the touchline, who is facing a touchline ban for an infringement during his spell as manager of Atletico de Kolkata.

Pune City started the game well and were in total control of the game for the first 25 minutes of the game. Mumbai City slowly crawled back into the game and regained the control of the game and finally got the deserved winner, the game decided by a stunning winner from Defederico.

Miguel, when asked about the absence of Eidur Gudjohnsen, said, “There is no doubt that we lost a leader in Gudjohnsen but since his injury, the team has prepared for the season without him and have replaced him well with a new marquee signing who will play in the next game.”

He also said that Tato played well despite the former Barcelona academy graduate missing two crucial chances in the second half.

But the assistant manager was not all gloomy as he also reflected on some of the positives that Pune City will take from their first game. He said, “Even if the team didn't play well, we still created a lot of chances against a strong Mumbai side and showed incredible intensity even after going down. This team consists of almost 80% of new players and it will take time to gel which will improve the performances. "

Miguel also confirmed that no player has picked up any new injury and all the players are fit after a hard fought game.