Mumbai City FC's challenge in the Hero Indian Super League (Hero ISL) 2019-20 came to an end after suffering a 1-0 loss to Chennaiyin FC at the Mumbai Football Arena on Friday. Jorge Costa's men could have sealed a semi-final spot themselves with three points from the fixture but failed to take their chances in a match which saw them play almost 40 minutes with ten men, after Sourav Das' sending off.

At the post-match press conference, Islanders head coach Costa said, “I’m very proud to be the coach of these players. We fought until the last second. The last corner, we had ten men inside the box trying to score and at least help us dream for the top four. This is the image of my team. We fought. We never gave up. We never hid.”

Looking back at the season, the Portuguese noted, “We worked a lot from the first day. I’m very proud of all my players. Yes, we made mistakes. Yes, we are out of the top four because we made a lot of mistakes. But in football and in life, sometimes you make mistakes.”

“You are not perfect. I am not perfect. The players are not perfect. The club is not perfect. But I am proud. And what I said to the players at the end of the game was that we had nothing to be ashamed of. We gave our best from the first to the last second of the Chennaiyin match,” Costa added.

Lastly, the Mumbai head coach felt there wasn’t much to choose from between the sides on the night and congratulated Chennaiyin on advancing to the semi-finals. “It was not a perfect game from both teams. Today we had two teams who were working hard during the game. We didn’t have many spaces to work with. Chennaiyin are doing an amazing job. They deserve to finish in the top four, especially for the last seven games that they have played. It’s normal. We were always in the game. It is very difficult for me to be here. My message is that we made an amazing job from the first day,” he concluded.

Read the Match Report here.