FC Pune City broke into the top 4 of Hero Indian Super League 2016 after a rip-roaring encounter against league leaders Delhi Dynamos FC at the Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex Stadium in Balewadi on Friday evening. It was a see-saw contest in which the Stallions fell behind to a Kean Lewis goal. A spirited second-half display, however, saw the hosts edge past the high-flying Lions in what surely was one of the games of the season so far.

Speaking to the media at the post-match press conference, head coach Antonio Habas revealed that at half-time he asked his players to believe in themselves after they were guilty of missing a spate of gilt-edged opportunities, including a Mohamed Sissoko penalty. “You saw the match. You can see in the first half we had many chances. Penalty, Eduardo [Ferreira], [Momar] Ndoye, Anibal [Rodriguez], they all had opportunities. One slip-up and we conceded. At half-time I told them to believe in themselves, and you saw what happened. We worked hard and we have got the result,” Habas said.

Friday’s encounter was the last home game of the league stage for Pune and Habas was glad to give the fans something to cheer about. “So, you know we played one of the best teams in the ISL. We are playing strong and well. For our fans, it is good, for us and for everyone. I think it was the best game for us and both teams. Both teams are playing good football. So, no one had to look at the referee, we just played. I’m happy for the fans and players because we needed a victory like this,” he said.

Looking ahead the 59-year-old Spaniard stressed the need of taking one game at a time. “We are only thinking about NorthEast right now. We have a huge travel coming up for us and very soon we will have to focus on recovering. We aren’t thinking about the semi-finals, so we will focus on NorthEast and prepare accordingly,” he said.

He added: “You saw two games back we were out of contention but now we are playing well again and we are back on track. We need to remain in the top 4. The only [important] thing is balance, we have to maintain that to achieve the result. Let’s see on December 2, what’s our position.”

Pune now face the Highlanders at the Indira Gandhi Athletic Stadium in Guwahati on November 22.