Bengaluru FC won their last Hero Indian Super League (ISL) 2017-18 league-phase fixture against Kerala Blasters FC by a 2 – 0 margin at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium in Bengaluru on Thursday. Both Miku and Udanta Singh struck in injury-time to ensure that the Blues finished the season with 40 points, a Hero ISL record in itself. After the final whistle, Bengaluru’s top-scorer of the season Miku took time to address indiansuperleague.com. Here are the excerpts from the interview.

Any reasons for a comparatively slow first-half?

It was always going to be a hard game because they (Kerala) don’t have a chance of going to the final round. They have a great team. They’ve got a big name here in India and it is hard to play against them. But we tried to do the same like our entire season - play hard, give the ball and try to score as many goals as we can. In the end, we won 2-0 and we’re happy for that.

Was there pressure because of the Bengaluru-Kerala rivalry?

No, we don’t have pressure. We played against big teams of course, and we’ve got a lot of crowd in the stands. A lot of people come to see us and we have a lot of support. We need to do the same as we’ve been doing throughout the season - try to play hard and win games.

How does it feel to win in the final minutes?

It’s very heartening because we worked throughout the game and in the last minutes, we scored two goals and finished off the game. We are happy because when you start the semi-finals with a winning momentum, it gives the team more confidence.

Will there be a different approach to the semi-finals?

It’s going to be more difficult because, in the final round, we’ve got four teams, who have performed the best in the league. All the four teams want to become the champions, so these are very hard games. You play away and home. So we need to take care because in this case, it is a game not for 90 minutes but for 180. We need to think of that and you have two games to get a better result for yourself.

Can you take this confidence to the semi-finals?

Of course. We have confidence in us because we have a great team and we’ve finished the league in the first position. We respect all the teams now because if they are there, they have quality, they have players to score goals and to defend. I don’t think it’ll be easy to win the games in the final round. We have to work hard. We need to keep our mentality, our concentration, and at all times, have the respect for them.