Liston Colaco: Kept telling myself before the Gokulam game that I had to make an impact

The ATK Mohun Bagan winger also revealed his favourite goal from the game.

Liston Colaco returned to form in spectacular fashion in ATK Mohun Bagan’s opening Hero Super Cup game against Gokulam Kerala. He scored a brilliant brace to inspire his side to a dominant 5-1 win and seems to be back in form after a tough Indian Super League (ISL) season.

Liston Colaco pleased to get back to scoring goals

The Indian winger is very pleased having scored after trying a lot throughout the season. He remarked: “After a long time I scored goals in a game. I’m feeling confident about myself now. But the challenge for me is to keep this form intact for the upcoming matches as well. I hope to continue scoring goals going forward. For some reason, I couldn’t perform to the best of my ability in the ISL and didn’t get much luck either.

“I tried a lot after getting opportunities but the goalkeepers kept saving all my attempts. But I kept believing in myself and knew that sooner rather than later, I’ll get my rewards. I kept telling myself internally before the Gokulam game that I had to make an impact on it. The fact that I’ve been able to do just that makes me happy, but it’s not just me – the entire squad performed well in it,” he added.

Colaco reveals his favorite goal from Gokulam win

Liston Colaco also opened up on which of the two goals he loved best and whom he wanted to dedicate the Man of the Match award he won after it. He revealed: “Among the two goals I scored against Gokulam, I feel like the second one was the best. That’s because I hit the shot from a long way out.

"Not only did I score a goal after a long time, but also won the Man of the Match award. That’s why I’m thankful to God. I want to dedicate that Man of the Match award to God and my family.“

ATK Mohun Bagan fully focused on Jamshedpur FC clash

Finally, Liston Colaco insisted that the upcoming game against Jamshedpur FC will be a really tough one and the Mariners need to perform even better than the last match to prevail. He explained: “We’ll play Jamshedpur in the next game and it’ll be a tough one. They, like us, have also started the Super Cup well. They managed to score five goals against a challenging opposition like FC Goa. ISL and Super Cup are different playing fields. We have to take the field in every game with one thing in mind - WIN.

“But we’ve started the competition pretty well. If we can maintain this form, we’ll be able to defeat Jamshedpur. However, I must reiterate that this game will be even tougher than the Gokulam one. We need to perform even better than we did in the first game. But I feel our entire dressing room is totally focused on winning the next game,” Liston finished off.