Mumbai City have had a mixed start to Hero Indian Super League (ISL) 2018-19 under new head coach Jorge Costa. The Islanders currently sit in seventh place, picking up seven points from five matches. After a humiliating loss to Goa, they put up a good performance against Delhi Dynamos to take home all three points.

Ahead of their next match against the defending champions Chennaiyin, indiansuperleague.com caught up with Paulo Machado on his experience in Indian football so far and on the team’s preparations for Saturday. Here are the excerpts:

How important was the result against Delhi Dynamos FC?

We know that it was a difficult game for us because we lost 5-0 and when you lose 5-0 it’s difficult for the team because a lot of players lose their confidence but we show to the people, we show to the teams that we are here to fight till the end and I think it was very important to get a good result against Delhi Dynamos FC and we did that.

How has your experience in the Hero ISL been so far?

Yeah, I didn’t expect that they’d play good but we start to see some games and some teams they play really good but I think that I’ve started to love this championship and I hope I will be here for the next years.

Have any young players caught your eye?

For the league, I don’t know a lot about the other teams, but I know in my team I have some good players. We have Subhasish (Bose), Pranjal (Bhumij), Vignesh (Dakshinamurthy). I think they can have a future for the India team.

Do you think your team can take advantage of Chennaiyin FC’s current form?

I think at this moment Chennaiyin FC like we say is not a good team but I think for me is one of the teams who have more chances in front of goal but they don’t score but I think we will go there to try and take the three points and if we want to stay in the top four or maybe higher we must win this game.

How important is getting into the top four?

It’s very important, even for our confidence. I think at this moment even the foreign players start to have a little bit more confidence. We score, we play better than the last two games, so I think we want to be in the four, in the top level.