Chennaiyin FC head coach Marco Materazzi has reiterated he is not putting any undue pressure on his players as the Super Machans look to defend their title in Hero Indian Super League 2016. Materazzi, whose team drew with Atlético de Kolkata in their opening match of the season in Kolkata, spoke to the media ahead of the Super Machans’ first home game this year, against Delhi Dynamos FC at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium on Thursday.

“It’s a pleasure to defend the title and I’m not putting any pressure on my players and I’m really glad with what they’re doing so far,” he told reporters on Wednesday.

Materazzi will be up against fellow Italian Gianluca Zambrotta, who is in charge of Delhi Dynamos FC. Materazzi and Zambrotta were part of the Azzurri’s World Cup-winning team in 2006, and when asked what kind of football he was expecting from his former team-mate, Materazzi said: “Firstly, I know him as a player and not as a coach. I’m really happy to see him here in India. It is a great chance for him to do well as head coach and I wish him the best but not for tomorrow’s game because we want to be the champions again.”

In their match against ATK, the Super Machans conceded a late penalty through Jerry Lalrinzuala and consequently had to leave the Rabindra Sarobar Stadium with just one point. The episode had left the Italian a bit critical at first as he thought it wasn’t a penalty. However, Materazzi did an about-turn on Wednesday, insisting his team needed to behave better in defence. “First of all, I will have to apologise to the referee [of the previous game] because in the last press conference I said it was not right but when I saw it again, it was a penalty. It was due to the inexperience of Jerry but when you are 18 you need to make these mistakes because if not, then only 30-year-olds would play. What we have to do is to learn from this mistake and be cautious in the penalty area and when Jerry learns that he’ll be ready to play in the whole league.”

Materazzi also said that Chennaiyin had improved infrastructure-wise a great deal in the last two years. “I cannot judge the other clubs’ infrastructure but as we know we faced many difficulties in the first year. We did not have a training pitch and we were training at a university. But from the second year on we have had our own training pitch. I think it is the best training pitch I could ever want. I think it’s perfect because we don’t have any excuses in terms of infrastructure, including the pitch. I want to thank the government and the club. Now we have all we want to do a perfect training session.”