I would like to see if other teams can come here and play the way we did-Guimaraes

The Mumbai boss feels the Kolkata franchise is the toughest team to beat in the ISL...

Mumbai City FC went on to lead the points table in the Indian Super League following their 1-0 win against Atlético de Kolkata at the Rabindra Sarobar Stadium in the city on Tuesday. The only goal of the match came in the 79th minute through Diego Forlan, who powered in a left-footed shot beyond a helpless Debjit Majumder in ATK’s goal. “All I can say is that I would like to see other teams come here and play against a very good team like Atlético de Kolkata with the kind of injury list that we have in the likes Boithang, Deferdico, Leo and Pronay and knowing that one of the best goal keepers of the ISL not playing and still play like we did. In the first half we played very well. In the second half, we held on to our first half performance and defended well too. In football, it is about making your chances count. In the first half, we did have more chances but in the second half we made our chance count,” Guimaraes told the media after the match. Commenting on Sony Norde’s interchanging of position from the left wing to the furthest man forward, Guimaraes said, “We had to make up for the absence of players. We also had Thiago Cunha who flew in today. We had to plan differently and I used my plan B from the word go today and I think we managed well. Everybody understood that with all the circumstances, we don’t have to just play well but play with all our heart on the pitch.” The first encounter between these two sides this year ended in a 1-1 draw with Javi Lara scoring a late equaliser for the 2014 winners. When asked if ATK attacking late on again was a contributing factor in Forlan’s winner, Guimaraes said: “I think we learnt from our last game against Atletico de Kolkata, even in that game in the first half we had the chance to finish the game but we didn’t. So, we learnt from our mistake that we were playing a very good team who will not give up. So, we took precautions and later reduced their game to just crosses and we managed well with the defensive players that we had.” Photo © ISL Media