FC Pune City’s Hero Indian Super League 2017-18 campaign got off to a stumbling start after a 3-2 loss against Delhi Dynamos FC at the Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex Stadium in Pune on Wednesday. Three second half goals by Delhi gave the visitors a three-goal lead and ultimately the three points.

The game didn’t start well for Pune with Jewel Raja going down with an injury straight after kick-off. Speaking to the media at the post-match press conference, Pune head coach Ranko Popovic admitted that the midfielder’s early injury altered his plans and set the tone for his team on the night. “Look, if these kind of things (Jewel’s injury) happen in the first minute, it should happen in the first game. Hopefully it does not happen again for the rest of the season. These things make a big rotation and we were not prepared for this, so we had to change things, different kinds of players, different positions,” Popovic said.

He continued: “But this is also not some kind of excuse because the first half was not that bad. The second half we made some bad mistakes and the first two goals were like gifts. I don’t want to minimise the quality of the opponent because they played well and deserved to win this game. They were stronger than us, but after the two goals, it was very difficult to get back into the game.”  

Expanding on why he opted to bring on Baljit Sahni to replace Jewel instead of Kean Lewis, Popovic added: “Kean Lewis cannot play because he did not train with us for a month. Kean Lewis was injured so we must protect him. It is very dangerous for him to play in this difficult game even for 45 minutes. We had him on the bench for these reasons. We didn’t have another player for this position.”

The Serbian head coach, however, insisted that his side’s inability to play as a team was the reason behind their loss and not Jewel’s injury. “We had been playing like a team but today during the second half, we didn’t begin like a team. It was a difficult game for these guys. They are playing their first game after such a long break, and also we didn’t have many of these players for preparation. They were physically stronger than us. We must work on this and make the negative things into positive ones for the next game. We don’t have much time, only three days and we must be positive,” Popovic said.

The 50-year-old though, did have some positives to take from the game and can look forward to their next encounter. “We scored two goals. This is positive. But it’s positive after 3-0. Positive must be at 0-0. And I am happy, because the guys tried to do this, they found energy, they found motivation to score the goals. After this during the second half it was a shock for us. We must come back (to the pitch) in less time and take the risk of playing with players like Diego Oliveira and Kean Lewis (who are recovering from injuries). I kept thinking to myself, I don’t want any more players to get injured because we have another game in three days,” he said.