Chennai Chennaiyin FC's assistant coach Vivek Nagul wasn’t very pleased with his team's 2-3 home defeat against defending champions Atletico de Kolkata in the opening game of the Indian Super League (ISL) here on Saturday and said that conceding soft goals cost them the match.
"Yes, I think we conceded soft goals and that affected us. First goal itself, we thought that we were unlucky. The ball fell in a way that it favoured the opponent team and that affected us. And yeah, other goals we think were also soft goals," said Vivek.
Kolkata got an early lead after a defensive error in the 13th minute, which gave their marquee player Helder Postiga a chance to score his opening goal in the tournament but Chennaiyin made a brilliant comeback after their striker Jeje Lalpekhlua scored in the 31st minute to make it 1-1.
The hosts were looking good until the 70th minute but Bernard Mendy's silly defensive error gave ATK the lead.
"We didn't want to play aerial balls and I think that if we would have won some balls better, it would have been more effective but as Elano was struggling alone with Jeje upfront, (still) we thought we created several chances . We had more shots on goal compared to the other team and I think we did well," he added.
Elano was once again the most impressive player from their side and also scored a goal on a controversial late penalty.
Chennaiyin were last year’s most impressive team and topped the group stages and won the quarters easily before their shock defeat to Kerala Blasters FC in the semis.
Comments
0 comment