Interview with U-Mumba's Jeeva Kumar: "At this stage, no team is small or big"

Jeeva Kumar

U Mumba’s Jeeva Kumar will be playing in his third consecutive semi-final. The underrated defender shared his thoughts with Sportskeeda on his form, his teammate Fazel and the semi-finals.

Personal form

“I am still not completely satisfied with my performance. Everyone keeps telling me I am playing well but I feel I have more to give. Earlier if I sensed even a small opening, I used to go for the tackle. Now I want to try and make as few mistakes as possible.

“It doesn’t matter at times if you don’t get the defensive point. But making a mistake and gifting a point is my concern”.

Big match experience

“You can’t really say that only we have big match experience. You shouldn’t wish to face any particular team. It all depends on the day of the match and how set the players are. We won our match against Titans comfortably, but I felt we made a couple of mistakes more than our liking.

“If we make the same mistakes in the semi-finals when leading by 1 or two points, it can prove to be very expensive. At this stage, no team is small or big”

On his Iranian teammate and bulldozer Fazel Atrachali

“Wrestling is really famous in Iran. He is naturally very powerful. You know he’s a big player in Iran. He has captained his side as well. But inspite of the cultural differences, we have had absolutely no problems. Despite being in stellar form, he was fine being substituted and Surender Nada playing a few games. If an Indian was in the same situation, they would have tried and played some politics.

“Till date he has never caused problems in the team. When Fazel replaced Nada, Surender was but obviously a bit disappointed. But I have never seen a person with such great character like Fazel. He is a very likeable person”