John Arne Riise will be desperate for a first win in the 2016 Hero Indian Super League when Chennaiyin FC host FC Goa at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium on Thursday. The Super Machans’ marquee player will have to be at the top of his game if the defending champions are to shore things up at the back having conceded five times in two matches already. Riise’s experience and big-match pedigree can be a defining factor on Thursday with both of last season’s finalists looking for their first win of Hero ISL 2016. The veteran centre-back spoke to indiansuperleague.com before his team’s second home match of the season. Here are the excerpts from the interview.You have played under a lot of managers in your career. Last year under Roberto Carlos and now under Marco Materrazzi. How different are they as managers?I have been lucky to play under different and experienced managers. Both Roberto and Marco are quite new to their managerial career but they have so much experience from when they were playing, they know what the game is all about and they are very professional and I learnt so much from Roberto last year and now from Marco. I have been a big fan of Marco Materrazzi both as a player and as a coach. Hopefully we can win this year also for Marco because he deserves to win.You have been with Chennaiyin for a while now, so which Indian player has impressed you the most and why?There are quite a few but mostly I think Jeje because you know he is a powerful striker, he is strong and a good goal-scorer. I think he scored 6-7 goals last year if I am not wrong and also I think Jayesh, we call him Neymar (laughs). He also is a good winger, he has technical ability and I can see that this year’s Indian players are much better than last year’s players.Can you see a change in the quality of football being played here?Oh yeah, you know last year was good but this year it is even better. Indian players are taking bigger steps and are working harder, the foreign players coming in are also bringing a lot of quality to the game so the Indian Super League is much better this year, it is tighter, more competitive and it is not easy to say who is going to win because everyone beats everybody. So it’s going to be a tight season.You started off with an away draw and followed it up with a home loss. So it hasn’t quite gone according to plan. You got a week off before tomorrow’s game, so have you ironed out the mistakes or have got any new plans in place?We didn’t play well against Delhi and we lost, so we had to go back to basics and had to work harder this week and as you said we know where it went wrong and we have to improve against Goa. We are ready and we want to win it for our fans and get the three pointsLast year’s finalists both FC Goa and Chennaiyin FC have found it tough this season. How crucial is tomorrow’s game?We haven’t won yet and FC Goa haven’t won yet, so it’s an important game to make sure you don’t fall too far behind. We are playing at home so I feel we have an advantage. We are champions and we want to win this game for the fans, for the team and most importantly for the three points so we can move higher in the table.How important is it to have a supportive crowd?It is very important. The fans here are unbelievable, they make a lot of noise. They shout every time we touch the ball. That motivates us. Especially playing at home. Hopefully against FC Goa tomorrow they will be there again to cheer us and we will give them something to cheer about.
