PANAJI
FCGoa is known to play attacking style of football. The Gaurs wereamong the leading goal scorers in the league stage during last ISLseason with 43 goals in 24 matches.
Asusual, foreigners had done bulk of the goal scoring for the Gaursduring last season. Armando Sadiku (10), Iker Guarrotxena (7), BrisonFernandes (7) and Borja Herrera (6) were the leading goal scorers forGoa during last season with Brison being the only Indian in thatlist.
But,this season, with the exit of four foreigners, it will be challengingfor the Gaurs. Goa has only two foreign players in its line-up thisseason - Spanish defender Pol Moreno and Serbian winger Dejan Dražić.
Goawould definitely miss the services of Iker Guarrotxena, JavierSiverio, David Timor and Borja Herrera. Without them, the midfieldand forward won’t look the same.
Thisseason, a truncated one, with 13 games, has just begun. These areearly days in the competition with FC Goa having played two matchesso far.
Goahas scored three goals in those two games, winning one of them andwith other ending in a draw. But, all the three goals in those gameshave been scored by the foreigners with Serbian winger Dejan Dražićscoring two of them and Spanish defender Pol Moreno netting in onegoal.
Accordingto FC Goa head coach Manolo Marquez, without much foreigners in theside for this season, it’s an opportunity for the Indian players toshowcase their skills. No doubt, the coach will have to do a lot ofadjustment.
“Finally,we have 11 players - Foreigners or Indian players. Obviously, theyare not the same. It’s the not the same to deal with Carl Mchugh orDavid Timor or Prachit. I feel it’s an opportunity for the Indianplayers in this short season. They will have a lot of minutes in thefield.”
Thecoach further added, “Now, everyone is speaking that only theforeigners have scored the goals. But all the Indian players didtheir job. If they do not do their job, goal will be impossible. Weneed better mentality. The attitude should be let’s go and scorethe goals. It should not be like, let’s see what happens.”
Whenasked what are the areas of improvement, Manolo said, “The decisionto finish their action. In the previous game against MohammedanSporting, we had a couple of chances and could have converted thoseinto goals. You need to have more hunger to finish the game. We needto convert our chances and score more goals.”
“Eachgame in ISL will be different since playing style of each team isdifferent. We will take it game by game. But, before that, we need toenjoy the season. We already have a slot in the Asian competition. Wewant to win every game. I think we played a fantastic game in thesecond match as compared to the first game. We were better than theprevious game and we expect to play even better tomorrow,” thecoach said.
