Mumbai City FC secured a point after a hard-fought 2-2 draw against NorthEast United FC at the Indira Gandhi Athletic Stadium in Guwahati on Wednesday. Panagiotis Triadis and Asamoah Gyan scored for the hosts but Amine Chermiti’s brace meant that the two teams had to share the spoils. While speaking with the media at the post-match press conference, Mumbai head coach Jorge Costa opted to assess his side’s collective performance rather than individuals. 

“We made some mistakes today like the last two games, but it wasn’t because it was an all Indian defensive line. I don’t like to speak individually or about the goalkeeper, the midfield or the attacking line. I prefer to speak of the team, and I think my team played a very good game today. We are now going to Kolkata with one point, which I think should be more with all respect to NorthEast. But football is like this…. but as I told my players after the game if we continue to play with the attitude and quality that we showed today then we will be where we want to be at the end of the league,” Costa said.

The Portuguese coach then elaborated on the game. “In my opinion, in the second-half we were close to scoring. NorthEast also had a few chances but on counter attacks. I watched all of NorthEast’s games from the start of the season and I think today was the first time that NorthEast played on counter. This happened because they were playing against a good team like Mumbai City FC and we pushed them to do so. It’s not the result that we wanted. We didn’t fly here to go back home with one point, we wanted all three. But we played against a very good team that is unbeaten from the start of the season,” Costa opined.

While expanding on what he told his players at half-time with the score at 2-2, Costa said, “I was happy with the boys at half-time. I am never 100% happy but I was happy and confident that we could do something more in the second-half. We were making some mistakes and we tried to fix some of those mistakes, but I asked my players to believe. I asked them to play with quality and to do something extra because I felt it was possible to win the game.”

“And as you saw from my substitutions, it wasn’t to keep it at 2-2. I took out Paulo Machado and put Diego Carlos in central midfield, which isn’t his favoured position. I also put on another striker to try and score but it’s okay. Unfortunately, we’re still making mistakes that we can’t afford to make at this level. It’s something we need to work on as a team and individually to become stronger,” he added.

Read the Match Report here.