Confident that we'll react in this game, says Manolo Marquez before Kerala Blasters tie

Manolo Marquez also heaped praise upon Kerala Blasters head coach Ivan Vukomanovic.

FC Goa are set to face Kerala Blasters in an exciting away fixture in the Indian Super League on 25 February. The Gaurs need a win after back-to-back losses in their previous two encounters. Although the team has performed well, there are many chances that they have failed to capitalize. Manolo Marquez spoke to the media ahead of their clash against Kerala Blasters. Excerpts are below:

Winning mentality

The two defeats are not a big thing in football. It’s about learning from the mistakes and trying to come up with wins. Manolo Marquez with his ever-confident approach said, “Usually when you are on top, all the teams want to be the team who are on top of the table. And that’s all. Now we have two options.

“One is to give up, or the other is to try to recover the feelings, and especially try to win the game in Kerala. Let’s see if we can beat them and then, for sure, things will work again in the correct way.”

Reasons for not scoring

FC Goa have played a similar kind of football and got positive results in their first-leg matches. They had created many more chances than what they have done in these recent fixtures.

“When you don’t score, obviously, in one moment, the opponent will have the chance to score, and the good thing for them was that they played with other teams and were not nervous when we attacked, especially at the beginning of the first half. And finally, when they scored the penalty, then the team was very nervous,” explained Manolo Marquez.

“We attacked, we created chances, but the finishing was missing somewhere. I think in the last minutes, the attitude was very good, but the disorder on the pitch seemed strong. I think that is a normal situation. Everyone were expecting that we would be champions five games before the conclusion of the league stage, but it’s a competition where there are very good teams and it’s very hard,” he added.

Talking about the opposition

Manolo Marquez praised Kerala Blasters manager Ivan Vukomanovic by saying he is a dynamic personality and a good friend of his. The mentor remarked, “Like all the volcanic people with a strong character, he managed a very good group. I think that he will push the players. I expect after three defeats, a strong crowd will back Kerala and they will create a lot of attacks in the initial minutes to score early goals.”

“It will be an equal game and in football, anything can happen. I am confident that we will react in this game,” he added.

Injuries of the opposition

Kerala Blasters have faced a lot of injury problems with some players going out for the entire season. Manolo Marquez said, “They just lost Sachin Suresh who was having a great season. But the player for me that is difficult to substitute is Adriana Luna.

“I think that they have bad luck because the injuries in Kerala are not muscle problems. They are very big injuries now. They lost Kwame Peprah, they lost Adrian Luna (which was a big blow).”

“We have to come back as soon as possible. If we don’t come back as soon as possible it will mean that we don’t deserve to be on top or second. But I feel, and I told this in the last press conference, that the team will be very competitive until the end of the season, despite these two games which were disappointments,” he ended.

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