Two of Hero Indian Super League (Hero ISL) 2018-19's best teams, Bengaluru FC and FC Goa, will lock horns on Thursday at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Goa. Both sides have had a lengthy break owing to a week of international fixtures and will be hoping to pick up from where they left off. Given their form this season, it is hard to predict who will come out on top.

At the pre-match press conference, Bengaluru head coach Carles Cuadrat spoke to the media about his expectations from the match. The Spaniard started off by giving an injury update on captain Sunil Chhetri, who missed India's friendly against Jordan due to an ankle injury. "Yes, he has been training in the last two training sessions and as far as we are concerned, there were no problems. So, I think that he can participate tomorrow," he informed.

Talking about his opponents, the Spaniard attributed their goal-scoring threat as the main area of concern for the side but admitted that he expects an entertaining tie. "Yes, we can say that Goa are playing very nice football and they are scoring a lot of goals. So, I think that it can be a very nice game because our mentality is also to play football and score goals. I hope that it’s going to be a nice match for our fans," he said.

Bengaluru haven’t played a home match in more than a month now but have still managed to pick up three consecutive victories on the road. However, Cuadrat admitted that his team will have to raise their level in order to overcome Goa in their own backyard. "It doesn’t matter to us if it’s home or away. We always try to offer the best. But it’s true that we come from three very hard games outside, Pune, Kerala, Kolkata. It’s going to be a challenge to try and get three points here. You know, how competitive the league is and how difficult it is to get four victories in a row. But we will try," he stated.

The Bengaluru coach concluded by speaking about the kind of work ethic required of his players to get a positive result from the match. "One of the reasons why I signed as a coach with Bengaluru is because I know the players and I know that they are very competitive. So, for us, the intention is to go and try to win every game. It has been pretty tough to win the last (few) games because all the opponents have been performing very good. And as far as I remember, last season we conceded four goals in their stadium. We suffered, we suffered. So, we know that if tomorrow we want to get something, we have to suffer again," he opined.

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