Jorge Costa: We handed the game over to Odisha

The Portuguese head coach was fuming with anger as he blamed his players' complacency for the loss.

Mumbai City FC suffered their first setback of the season, falling to a crushing 2-4 loss to Odisha FC in their first home match at the Mumbai Football Arena on Thursday. A brace from Aridane Santana along with strikes from Xisco Hernandez and Jerry Mawihmingthanga set up a stunning first win for Odisha, while Mohamed Larbi and Bipin Singh scored for the Islanders. Jorge Costa was an unhappy man after watching his side let their fans down and took a no-holds-barred approach when discussing what went wrong.

Assessment Of The Game

He said, “The problem is that after two games we thought that our job was done. In football when you’re not prepared for the things you must do properly, you cannot expect more than what we did in the first 45 minutes."

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“We conceded some silly, stupid goals. I put 11 players on the field. But it looks as if I put 11 players on the paper and they never got into the field. This is not my team. This is not what I want. Today we didn’t deserve more than losing the game," he added.

Complacency

The Portuguese indicated that overconfidence could’ve played a part in the result, saying, “With all due respect to Odisha, they played well and deserved to win, but we handed the win to them. This is not a question of changing players. We played with almost the same players who did all good things before."

“I spoke with the players as I didn’t like yesterday’s training. I felt like they think they’re much better than they actually are. We must work and be 100% professional at all times. We must also respect the other. When you don’t respect the others and think you’re better than you really are, this is the result," the 48-year-old quipped.

On Individual Errors

Jorge Costa also didn’t like to point out any disappointments from any particular player, especially on make-shift right-back Mohammed Rafique. He exclaimed, “I don’t like to speak about individuals. You shouldn’t ask me this about just one defeat. It’s not at all about Rafique. He did his best. He’s one of the players who tried their best. If you ask me things about individuals, I’ll say things which I could regret tomorrow.”

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Recovery From The Defeat

When he was asked about whether the seven-day rest period gives the Islanders time to recover from this defeat, Jorge Costa said, “Yes I hope so. This is one of the things that the players have to realise. Our next important game is in one week so we have time to rest and do different things to win the game. We did the opposite today and we lost the game. Now we have seven days to see what happened today, to work hard and to give an answer in the game against FC Goa.”

Mumbai City FC were especially poor marking Xisco Hernandez and Odisha’s attacking midfielders, but Costa admitted he needs time to find out what to improve. He ended with, “I must debrief a little bit and to think about the game. After the game it’s not the right moment to think. If my focus now is on improving what happened in the first forty-five minutes I have to change up everything. I’ll be re watching the game and coming up with the solutions for the next one. I’m very sorry to all the fans today as they took all the time to come to the game.”