Juan Ferrando: That one bad day against Bashundhara knocked us out of AFC Cup

Juan Ferrando will now make the ISL and the Super Cup his bull’s eye.

Mohun Bagan Super Giant were knocked out of the 2023-24 AFC Cup group stages after a bitter 5-2 loss to Odisha FC at the Salt Lake Stadium, Kolkata on Monday (November 27). The Mariners were made to pay for their defensive errors and with this loss now, they have no chance of topping Group D anymore.

Thoughts on the result

Juan Ferrando was understandably disappointed with the result, as he said afterwards: “We had some problems, some players were not 100% fit and some other ones weren’t playing due to injury. This is a part of football. In this case we’re disappointed. In this moment we’re thinking of the next match that is in four days.”

Did Bashundhara Kings’ win impact the players mentally?

Ferrando believes poor individual mistakes cost his side after they saw Bashundhara Kings win their match against Maziya S&RC. He stated: “For us, we saw during the warm-ups that Bashundhara had changed the score to 2-1. So everyone knew the situation at that time. We tried to think about ourselves and do our things. Three mistakes is the reason why we conceded the goals. In the AFC Cup, we need to depend on our performance and not on the other results. This is different when we play in the ISL.”

“Before the game, everyone saw that Maziya was up 1-0. But then they changed the score in two minutes. We were thinking of our details, but it’s true that in the back of the mind we knew that result made things very difficult and that we needed to win to get into the next round,” he added.

Why Ferrando isn’t too bothered by scoreline

The Spaniard isn’t much worried about losing 5-2 and highlighted the reason, saying: “The last two goals came in the 92nd and 94th minute. That is because we focused totally in attack and it’s normal. Losing 5-2 in this case is like losing by 3-2 or 6-2. A minimum for us was to at least make it 3-3 and we were only thinking of our attack because drawing the game was most important at that time. If we lose 2-5 or 1-2, it’s the same.”

Substitutions improved Mohun Bagan threat

The Mariners’ boss doesn’t think that his substitutions were wrong, especially after Kiyan Nassiri scored his side’s second goal. He explained: “We have a lot of matches ahead. It’s necessary to prepare a plan for that, but if we talk about Thapa (Anirudh) and Kiyan’s (Nassiri) contribution, in the second half we played much better than Odisha. They created the spaces in the attack.”

He added, “In the first half until the 25th minute, I think the team was good and after becoming 1-1, we disappeared for 10 minutes or so. In the second half we were much better. They scored twice in the last five minutes, but we were better in the second half. The substitutes tried to their best and of course, the opponent found a lot of space to attack towards the end.”

Impact of Bashundhara Kings’ result and looking forward to the future

Juan Ferrando also believes that the two underwhelming results to Bashundhara Kings might’ve dell the final blow to the Mariners’ hopes of making it past the group stages. He said: “We already played at home against Bashundhara, but we couldn’t play here and that was disappointing. The results against Bashundhara were really disappointing. Everyone knows that if you lose one and draw the other game against a team, the opponent has more chances to go through.  

“After the matches against Bashundhara, the next two games became difficult because our qualification depended on the other results. But this is an international competition, it’s not possible to say that we want the trophy. You have to deserve it. Sometimes one mistake costs you and that one bad day against Bashundhara knocked us out of the competition,” he further claimed.

Ferrando will now be looking forward to the upcoming matches in the ISL. He concluded by saying:  “The next few matches are important. Our next ISL match is against Hyderabad. We focus on the ISL and the Super Cup. Our life continues. We aren’t happy but we have important matches ahead and we need to keep fighting for the top spot in the table. More things are on our way.”

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