We dominated the match and had a great game-Molina

The manager had special praise for keeper Debjit Majumder who put in a stellar performance between the sticks…

Atlético de Kolkata registered their first home win of Indian Super League 2016 thanks to a 1-0 win over Delhi Dynamos FC at the Rabindra Sarobar Stadium in Kolkata on Saturday. It was a evenly-matched contest that could have gone either way after ATK were reduced to 10 men with 15 minutes remaining. Henrique Soreno picked up a second yellow after fouling Richard Gadze in the box to concede a penalty. Marcelinho missed the spot-kick in the 74th minute and Kolkata scored minutes later after earning a penalty. Iain Hume stepped up and sent Delhi goalkeeper Toni Doblas the wrong way to script his team’s win. Speaking to the media after the match, Kolkata head coach Jose Molina expressed his delight at his team’s second win of the season. “I am absolutely, happy. I think we had a great game. Of course, we can improve and yes we had a lot of opportunities to score but we missed. But overall, I think we did a great job in attack and defence as well. We dominated the match,“ he said. Another stellar performer on the night was their goalkeeper Debjit Majumer, who made eight saves during the game, including a spectacular triple-save in the first half to keep Delhi’s Florent Malouda, Gadze and Marcos Tebar at bay. Molina, who was a goalkeeper himself during his playing days, was quick to recognise Majumder’s contribution to the team. “His performance was excellent. He has been working hard every day in the training sessions and has improved. I am absolutely happy with his performance. I feel he proved today that he is a great goalkeeper. He had some wonderful saves. He took care of all the aerial threats in the box as well, so he did a great job…Debjit Majumder performed very well and I hope he continuous the same way,” Molina said. The win took ATK to second in the standings. Molina, however, wasn’t prepared to look too much into his team’s position and stressed the need of taking one game at a time. “Of course I would go for a win against Mumbai City FC too. My aim was 9 points from 3 home games but it is not possible now. If we go top of the table that is good but that is not the most important thing now. We want to win the three points that is most important. Getting the three points matters most because that takes us closer to our goal, the semis. It doesn’t matter if we are on top of the table then,” the former Villarreal manager said. The former Kitchee FC coach also justified his decision of resting Arnab Mondal and starting with Tiri and Sereno at centre-back. Molina said, “Javi Lara was not feeling too well. He had fever a few days back because of which the last two days he didn’t train with us as well. He was not at his best so we kept him on the bench. About Arnab Mondal, we didn’t have Helder Postiga, Javi Lara and Ofentse Nato fully fit, so I had to sacrifice him to get in another foreign player. It’s not because I am not happy with his performance.” Photo © ISL Media