FC Pune City midfielder Arata Izumi is not too excited at facing another Maharashtra side Mumbai City FC in their 2016 Hero ISL opener at the Balewadi Stadium in Pune on Monday.

“Of course, a derby is a special game. But for us it is first a game and we take it as one game, a normal game. We should be able to perform up to the mark,” Izumi, who joined Pune City from Atlético de Kolkata earlier this year, said at the pre-match press conference on Sunday.

FC Pune City are going into match without their head coach Antonio Habas, who is serving a suspension. They also had to find another marquee in Mohamed Sissoko after Eidur Gudjohnsen was ruled out for the season due to injury. But Izumi was confident that they will be able to cope with it. “They are both great personalities and we will miss them. That being said, they may not be on the ground but they are with us. Every game is played as a team so it doesn’t impact us.”

Assistant coach Miguel also addressed the media and showed his satisfaction with the team that didn’t lose a single game during the pre-season. “We had a long pre-season. The objective was to get the right agility and combination for the players. We have different personalities. We have a lot of new players. We did a good job there. We’ve worked to get a good combination. Now the players have to do what we have been practicing all along.

“We have been working for the last eight weeks. We have played eight practice games and we have won all of them. So we are ready. We have a competitive team to win games,” he said.

The Pune City assistant coach also made it clear they were not focussing too much on Diego Forlan, Mumbai City’s marquee player. “We play against Mumbai City, not Forlan. We know how Forlan is, his capabilities and he is one of the top-most players. But we will play against the team and we have planned our game to beat them, not Forlan,” he said.