Odisha Fc head coach Josep Gombau is confident ahead of the upcoming Hero ISL season despite being knocked out in the quarter-finals of the Durand Cup by eventual winners Bengaluru FC. The Odisha FC squad is filled with new signings and a mix of young and experienced players. They gave a good account of themselves winning every match in the group stage.
“For us, it was a positive experience. We had a long pre-season in which we played five games – four group stage matches and one quarter-final. Everything was well arranged, and the training pitch had good quality. I’m happy with my team, and I think, for us, it was difficult for us to play the final games of the preseason,” Odisha FC head coach Josep Gombau said. “It is not easy to find the level of teams to play such friendly games and to play in the Durand Cup brings us a long time between games which allows us to train and also to have the quality games for our team to play in the preseason. We’ve spent five weeks in the tournament and I liked the tournament, it was our first participation, and we should be playing this [Durand Cup] next season too.”
“It was a good game for us, not sure about Bengaluru FC. It was a game which was equal, in the beginning, we had a very good chance to score and another chance before half-time. In the second half, we endured a difficulty with Shubham [Sarangi] getting a red card as we were playing the game with 10 men but even in such a situation we got into extra-time,” he added. “Bengaluru FC scored a goal, we equalized, but in the end, we lost the ball in the very last second of the game as BFC scored with the help of a great goal from Roy Krishna and we lost the game in the 121st minute.”
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