Manolo Marquez underscores which card Sanjeev Stalin should have received

The club earned a point after an entertaining draw with the Islanders.

Hyderabad FC played a 1-1 draw with Mumbai City FC in their recent Indian Super League (ISL) 2022-23 fixture at the Mumbai Football Arena in Mumbai on Saturday. There was no winner in the battle between the top two teams in the league standings. Goals from Jorge Pereyra Diaz and Hitesh Sharma for their respective teams saw the sides share the spoils. Manolo Marquez spoke to the media after the game in the post-match press conference. He was happy with his players and their character against the league leaders who are favourites to win the ISL Shield this season.

Here are the excerpts from the conversation:

A fair result

Manolo Marquez believes that the result was fair and that either team could have won the game given the number of chances they got. He said, “In my opinion, the score was fair. They had some chances and we had some. Hitesh (Sharma) scored his first goal in the ISL. He deserved it because he is a player who works and learns a lot in every training session. Finally, we were tired in the last minutes. We wanted to try and win but we were close to losing with (Alberto) Noguera creating danger and Borja (Herrera) was very tired.”

“I am happy and proud of my players. It is incredible how well the guys are doing this season,” he further added praising the efforts of his players for winning a point against the league leaders.

Difficult to beat

The tactician praised his team’s efforts and the ability to produce results during rough patches. He mentioned, “I said previously that when you play a game, you have to know which is the opponent in front. It was more of a tactical game (against Mumbai City FC). But, our team has lost less than 10 games in three years. Even when we don’t play well, we are a difficult team to beat. This is the reason we are second in the table.”

“It is true that today was the last chance to win the Shield but Mumbai are the best team in the championship and I think that drawing two games against them is like two extra points. Not all of the teams can get these points,” he admitted that Hyderabad FC cannot win the ISL Shield by finishing top of the table, ahead of the Islanders.

The red card incident

There was a controversial point in the match where Sanjeev Stalin pulled Rohit Danu and was about to receive a red card since he was the last man. However, the referee discussed with the fourth official and decided to show a yellow instead.

“In my opinion, it was a yellow card,” Manolo Marquez clarified. However, he was of the opinion that the fourth official is not a VAR official and once a decision is taken, it ought not to be reversed.