The game was crazy, says Manolo Marquez after win over Jamshedpur FC

Manolo Marquez spoke highly of Jamshedpur FC goalie Vishal Yadav.

FC Goa left it late to secure a 3-2 away win in the Indian Super League over Jamshedpur FC at the JRD Tata Sports Complex in Jamshedpur on Tuesday. Borja Herrera’s injury-time strike earned three points for the Gaurs who keep their hopes of a direct semi-final place in the playoffs alive.

Manolo Marquez spoke after the match during the post-match press conference. He termed the game against the Men of Steel “crazy” and is focused on winning the last game of the league stage, which is what his team can control at the moment.

Here are the excerpts from the conversation:

Analysis of the match

Manolo Marquez suggested that the game was unpredictable and one that could have gone either way. He said, “The game was crazy. Maybe, I don’t know, a lot of clear chances for Jamshedpur FC, a lot of clear chances for FC Goa. Maybe for the crowd, it was a very good game. For Jamshedpur FC coach and for me, these kinds of games are heads or tails. Today was for us. My feeling is that we had more chances than them. But, finally, we won the game. Now in this moment, we have only one game to finish the regular season which is the most important.”

Praise for Borja Herrera

The tactician talked about making changes and how there was a lot of space for both teams. He said, “I was doubting a lot with the substitutions because the game was absolutely crazy. We had a lot of spaces but we were not…more than defending we were not compact and then, as one player said, maybe if we put a third team on the pitch, we could play with three teams today because the spaces were very, very big.

“I was doubting a lot about the substitutions. And finally, sometimes it happens. In this case, Borja entered. He takes very good shots from outside the box. In Mumbai, he could score two, or three goals. Today, he shot 2-3 times. And finally, the chance, which was less clear, but was a strong shot, was a mistake of the goalkeeper. Vishal Yadav is a very very good goalkeeper with a great future and I think that he will be one of the best goalkeepers in India immediately.”

Not in our hands

Manolo Marquez suggested that finishing in the top two places is not entirely in their hands. “We know that with this win today at least we are third in the table but it’s not enough. We want to be in the top-two but this situation does not depend on us. We need Mohun Bagan to lose one game. One of them is before Goa-Chennai, but the last game is in Kolkata. It seems that can be the final between Kolkata and Mumbai.

“We need to win our game. Even according to the score in Bangalore, we need to win, because we don’t know what will happen the next day. The only thing to do now is to recover the players, because we play another game in five days; every team is now playing consecutive games,” he added.

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