Atlético de Kolkata picked up their first home win of Hero Indian Super League 2016 thanks to a 1-0 win over Delhi Dynamos FC at the Rabindra Sarobar Stadium in Kolkata on Saturday. It was evenly-matched contest that could have gone either way after ATK were reduced to 10 men with 15 minutes remaining. Henrique Soreno picked up a second yellow after fouling Richard Gadze in the box to concede a penalty.Marcelinho missed the spot-kick and Kolkata scored seconds later after earning a penalty of their own. Iain Hume stepped up and sent Delhi goalkeeper Toni Doblas the wrong way to script his team’s win. Speaking to the media after the match, Kolkata head coach Jose Molina expressed his delight at his team’s second win of the season. “Absolutely, happy. I think we had a great game. Of course, we can improve and yes we had a lot of opportunities to score but we missed. But overall, I think we did a great job in attack and defence as well. We dominated the match. The couple of opportunities that Delhi Dynamos FC got were because of some mistakes that we made and they took advantage of. I think we were the better team on the field, “ he said.Another stellar performer on the night was their goalkeeper Debjit Majumer, who made eight saves during the game, including a spectacular triple-save in the second half to keep Delhi’s Florent Malouda, Gadze and Marcos Tebar at bay. Molina, who was a goalkeeper himself during his playing days, was quick to recognise Majumder’s contribution to the team. “His performance was excellent. He has been working hard every day in the training sessions and has improved. I am absolutely happy with his performance. I feel he proved today that he is a great goalkeeper. He had some wonderful saves. He took care of all the aerial threats in the box as well, so he did a great job…Debjit Majumder performed very well and I hope he continuous the same way,” Molina said.The win took ATK to second in the standings. Molina, however, wasn’t prepared to look too much into his team’s position and stressed the need of taking one game at a time. “We will try to win the next match of course. Most important thing is to recover because we play our next match on Tuesday. I hope on Tuesday when we play against Mumbai City FC here at home all the players will be ready. I hope they will give their best, try to win and take all three points. If we go top of the table that is good but that is not the most important thing now. We want to win the three points, that is most important. Getting the three points matters most because that takes us closer to our goal, the semis. It doesn’t matter if we are on top of the table then,” the former Villarreal manager said.Kolkata’s talisman Javi Lara and Indian international Arnab Mondal were both noticeable absentees in ATK’s starting 11. When asked if not starting with them was a tactical decision, Molina said: “Javi Lara was not feeling too well. He had fever a few days back because of which the last two days he didn’t train with us as well. He was not at his best so we kept him on the bench. About Arnab Mondal, we didn’t have Helder Postiga, Javi Lara and Ofentse Nato fully fit, so I had to sacrifice him to get in another foreign player. It’s not because I am not happy with his performance. I felt it was better to have two foreign centre-backs in this match. It’s good that he got some rest because on Tuesday again we have an important match.”
