FC Goa head coach Zico was overjoyed after leading his team to their first Hero Indian Super League final, following a 3-0 win over Delhi Dynamos FC in the second leg of their semi-final at Fatorda’s Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium on Tuesday evening.
“I firstly want to thank my players and fans and staff and everyone who has supported us in the league so far. Our first target is fulfilled and we are thankful to all these people who have been with us so far,” Carlos told reporters after his team overturned a 1-0 deficit from the first leg through goals from Joffre, Rafael Coelho and Dudu.
When asked if he had expected such a thumping win against the Lions, Carlos said: “At no point the game was easy. It was very hard for us. We made it seem a little bit easy. We are used to playing well in Fatorda. But it’s not just the venue, because we played here against Chennaiyin FC and FC Pune City also and we didn’t have very nice results. The difference was the attitude of the team, the behaviour, the desire to win and fight there. That helped us perform this way. So our team understood that today was to kill or to die. So we did our best to neutralize all the players the Delhi team used like [Gustavo] dos Santos and all.”
The Brazilian shed further light on the game. “We played strong but only on the ball. We always play with our philosophy. I always tell my players, ‘if you have to win you have to play strong and give everything there’,” Zico said.
When asked how difficult it was reaching the final in light of several injury concerns for the most part of the season, Zico said, “We believe in our squad. We chose 26 players, and they have to be prepared to play. If I believe in them, they have to believe in themselves. When Reinaldo was playing, Rafael was out. When Rafael is playing, Reinaldo is out. I am happy that in this final, we have 24 players to play, maybe without Reinaldo and Raju Gaikward. We have five days ahead of us to rest and recover and give our best in the final.”
The other finalists will be the winners from the Atlético de Kolkata-Chennaiyin FC game in Kolkata on Wednesday. When asked who the Gaurs would like to face in the final in Goa on December 20, Zico said: “For us, it was important to go to the final. Against anyone, no problem. Who gets to the final is who deserves it, so if you are there you have no right to pick who else should be there.”
