Jamshedpur FC saw their top four hopes in the Hero Indian Super League (Hero ISL) 2019-20 come to an end after suffering a 2-1 loss to Mumbai City FC at the Mumbai Football Arena on Thursday. Jamshedpur took the lead in the 7th minute through a Noe Acosta penalty but were pegged back courtesy goals from Amine Chermiti and Bidyananda Singh.

At the post-match press conference, Jamshedpur head coach Antonio Iriondo revealed his team’s pre-match plan and said, “The plan was to use both sides. Try to use Aniket (Jadhav) and Farukh’s (Choudhary) speed. But at the end, it didn’t work that way. We had to substitute both players because they were tired of doing the hard job of going up and down the wing.”

Pointing to the duo’s substitutions in the second half as a key turning point in the fixture, the Spaniard said, “The match changed after the substitutions, but they (Aniket and Farukh) were very tired. It was curious that after they scored and after the substitutions, we had total control of the match. We had more possession near their goal and had our chances. We had a double chance with Sergio (Castel) and Amarjit (Singh), but their goalkeeper made a great save.”

While his team may have failed to reach the top four, Iriondo laid out a silver lining of their season and stated, “After all the situations that we had with injuries to Piti, Sergio Castel and Tiri, we had to put young players in the field, and they had a lot of minutes to play. It is something that is important for the future. The positive part of these injuries is that we are trying to give confidence to these players, who will be part of the squad next season. It’s very important for the club that these players are getting minutes, because it is the best way to improve.”

Read the Match Report here.