FC Goa coach Zico wasn’t critical of his team following a 1-1 draw against table-toppers FC Pune City in the Hero Indian Super League on Friday evening. The Goan team created quite a few opportunities at Fatorda’s Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium but couldn’t convert them. Zico, whose team moved up to third in the points table, addressed the media after the match and said: “This is the first time that we played this way. The players gave everything, and I am very happy with them. We created so many opportunities, but tonight we couldn’t come to a fulfilment. But I am very happy with them. And football is this way. We had like six clear chances, we couldn’t score. They had like one or two, and they scored. But I am happy with everything we gave there.”Goa had three men guarding the backline all through the match and Zico explained the move. “First of all, to neutralize the crosses. Most of Pune’s goals have been results of headers, so we’ve tried to neutralize them. Tuncay Sanli and the others, they didn’t have any chances in their normal game. They used another play and they scored with that. It’s part of the game,” he said.A Roger Johnson own goal early into the second half put Goa ahead before Eugeneson Lyngdoh’s header restored parity. On conceding a free header, Zico said: “My only disappointment is that we could have scored like 3-4 goals, and we didn’t. The goal that they scored was completely merited. That was nice play, and they scored.”The Brazilian, however, was satisfied with this team’s position after seven matches. “Our target is the top four. In the play-offs, we don’t have any advantage being either first, second, third or fourth. So our target, our aim is to always be in the top four. If we start the second phase of the tournament in the top four, we are happy with it,” he said.Meanwhile, FC Pune City coach David Platt admitted that his team failed to take charge of the game. “I mentioned it at the press conference, I spoke to the players about it in our team meeting before the game, that we had to take charge of the game, and we didn't take charge of the game. To be honest with you, that’s my job as a coach to try and give us a better foundation to try…We could still be a little bit more [effective] with the 4-4-2 formation.” FC Pune City now travel to Kochi to play Kerala Blasters FC on Wednesday. On the upcoming fixture, Platt said: “There won't be a new approach, no. we haven’t got the time to bed that in, we need to recover now, we also need to work with the players who haven’t played because we've not even been able to do that properly, because we've played three games in six days and are traveling as well. So we'll spend a couple of more days here in Goa and work well and recover well and then start to prepare for our next game in Kerala.“
