'In one moment today, I felt bad luck creeping in on us' - Manolo Marquez following FC Goa's win over East Bengal

The Gaurs overcame an underwhelming Torch Bearers side in front of the home crowd to consolidate their place in the fourth spot.

FC Goa beat East Bengal FC by a slender 1-0 scoreline at the Fatorda stadium in ISL 2023-24 on Wednesday. The Manolo Marquez-led side refused to let go of their golden chances this time around. Noah Sadaoui’s repeated gilt-edged chances saw him end up on the scoresheet in the 42nd minute as Mohammed Yasir put the ball on a silver platter for the Moroccan to smash home from the near post.

Emerging from the dugouts at halftime with the proceedings still in their favour, the Gaurs kept going at the lacklustre East Bengal defence. As the referee blew the whistle, the Goan outfit not only walked away with a win and all three points but a clean sheet as well. Here are the excerpts from FC Goa’s head coach on his team’s performance in the post-match press conference. 

Manolo Marquez on whether FC Goa could’ve scored another goal in the second half

FC Goa had 26 shots with seven on target yet they managed to score only once. The head coach was worried about his teams’ inability to finish as he explained:

“Let’s see. I’m happy because we won. This is the most important in football. But if today we didn’t score four, or five goals when will we score? I know that at the moment, after some bad results, it’s difficult. Sometimes even when you’re suffering you can win at least one game with ease. But this was a rarity. Even in one moment today, I felt bad luck creeping in on us as we substituted Carlos (Martinez) to allow Borja (Herrera) and Noah (Sadaoui) to go on the counter-attack but two minutes later Borja came off injured. So we had to immediately change our plan.

Even Paolo (Retre) played very well in the minutes that he was on the pitch. But for me the quantity of easy chances that we missed scoring today; if the score was 3-0 or 4-0 today, maybe it would be fair. Today I think that the problem was not Noah or Carlos or any other player. We all know what kind of a player Noah is in the ISL. The thing is that today we needed to score more goals to finish the game early to ease our difficulties in the final minutes.” 

Manolo Marquez on the upcoming game against Punjab FC

After returning to winning ways all eyes will be on the Gaurs so see if they can keep the sail in their winds or falter once again when they visit Punjab FC. The tactician shared his thoughts on their away game in Delhi, on the same, as he noted: 

“I’ll tell the same answer for every game—very difficult game against a team that plays very good football. In the beginning, it was difficult for them to adapt to the competition. But now they could potentially even finish in sixth position. They have a very big pitch and stadium. We need to play a very good game if we want to win there. This is our target.

Now it’s true that game by game we lost the advantage we had initially due to the bad run of results we had. We need to finish every game on top and if not on top in second. But it’s going to be a difficult match in Delhi.”

Manolo Marquez on potentially missing players due to yellow cards

Mohamed Yasir’s yellow card in today’s match made it 5 players on a warning for FC Goa. The Spanish mentor was however quoted saying that it’s all a part and parcel of the game and he’s focused on the game as he quipped: 

“No, I’m focused on the game. Practically all the teams are in the same situation. Yesterday I told in the press conference, no? Every team practically has players on three yellow cards. Today with East Bengal as well. I spoke now with Souvik (Chakraborty) who was my player in Hyderabad (FC). He alongside (Mohammad) Rakip is on three yellow cards. In our team today Yasir was the third player with a yellow. Now we know that we have five players on yellows.

Maybe one day we have two players and another one gets added in the next game. But now is the moment that we have to risk. Now we cannot substitute players. Okay if the score is something like 3-0, we could do it. But with 1-0, we have to do the substitutions that will be the most important at the moment for the team.”

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