After a productive campaign with Odisha FC in the Hero Indian Super League (Hero ISL) last season, winger Jerry Mawihmingthanga is looking forward to playing under the club’s new head coach Stuart Baxter. In an interview with khelnow.com, Jerry heaped praise on the club and spoke about his first season with the Bhubaneswar-based outfit.

“I am really excited to be working under him (Baxter). It would be a whole new learning process and I hope that it would help me develop more as a player,” Jerry said. “Odisha FC is a good club. The owner, the staff and my (former) coach (Josep) Gombau were all very good to me and believed in me. So far, I’ve had only good experiences with them.”

Odisha’s squad looks well balanced with experienced players and young blood. The likes of Vinit Rai and Nandakumar Sekar learned a lot from the seasoned professionals last season and Jerry revealed that while he’s looking ahead to further his development with the help of experienced players in the upcoming campaign, the 23-year-old is also very excited to play with the youngsters in the team.

“I was one of the younger players in Odisha last season and I learned a lot from senior players like Marcos Tebar and Xisco Hernandez. This time, the club has managed to sign many players even younger to me. I’m very excited to see my new teammates and start working with them. I also feel it is good that we have so many young players in our team,” Jerry enthused.

On his ambitions for next season, Jerry, who scored twice for Odisha last campaign, admitted that he’s looking to add to his goal tally in Hero ISL 2020-21. “Ahead of next season, I would like to improve my goal-scoring. I am certainly aware that I am not a complete footballer already. I’m still learning new things daily and the end objective is to be a better player tomorrow than what I am today,” he shared.

Much like every young footballer, Jerry aspires to play for the national team. Having garnered a lot of exposure at youth level, Jerry hopes he can make the step up to the Indian senior team soon. “Everyone dreams of representing the country. I already have the experience of playing with India’s U-19 and U-23 sides and that has given me a lot of exposure, especially to foreign players and conditions. It has helped me become more mature as a player, so let us hope that I will soon become one among the best footballers in our country and that I will soon get a chance to wear our national colours,” he said.