Mumbai City FC secured all three points in their opening fixture against last season’s semi-finalists FC Goa, winning by a margin of 3-0. FC Goa were punished by a clinical Mumbai City, as last season’s Hero Indian Super League Golden Boot winner Igor Angulo scored a brace on his debut for the Islanders. The Spaniard calmly slotted home a penalty in the 33rd minute, before his thumping strike from the edge of the box in the 36th minute gave his side a two goal advantage.

Ygor Catatau added insult to injury with a third goal in the 76th minute, as the substitute headed it past Dheeraj Singh from a Ahmed Jahouh cross. Mumbai City FC would be eyeing a strong display against a talented Hyderabad FC side when they face them in their second game of the season on 27th November.

Mumbai City FC head coach Des Buckingham reflected on the game in the official post-match press conference.

Here are a few excerpts from the press conference:

Has a marker been laid down for your title defence after this win and your debut?

It’s always enjoyable to get a win, especially in your first game. I won’t say it’s a marker, I’ll say it’s a good start for us. Building off the back of what this club and team achieved last year. So it’s important we started well, it is really pleasing to see. For parts of the game, we played the style of football we want to play and we want to evolve from what we did last season. So very pleased with the start but that’s what it is.

How happy were you with the performance of Igor Angulo and Cassio Gabriel?

Very happy not just for those two but we had some changes in the game due to injuries and things we had to change around and I thought every player that came on had a huge impact positively for us. Young (Mohamad) Rakip who is a right back, came on at left back, and the subs that were made in the second half came on and injected some life into the game which was needed.

How would you describe your first experience in the Hero ISL?

I really enjoyed it. I said at the start I was excited to be in India, I was excited to take over this club and continue building on the excellent work that Sergio Lobera did last year. My job was to come in and continue that and try and build that and evolve that style, and I’m hopeful that we’ve started to show signs of that in periods of the game.

Igor Angulo faced off against his former side tonight, how pleased would you be and would he be with his performance?

He’ll be extremely pleased because the goalkeeper coach is unfortunately sick tonight. He has promised him that he will sing tonight at the team dinner if Igor scored and we won the game, so he will be very much looking forward to that when we get back to the hotel.

You have until next week for your next game, having won 3-0, how do you see yourself preparing in the next week?

We’ll shut the players down for a day or two, we will give them time to rest and recover. We’ve had a lot going on in the last couple of weeks, so it’s important that we recover after this and assess where we are.