ISL 2019-20 | Anything that could've gone wrong tonight, did go wrong, says Phil Brown

After new entrants Odisha FC opened their ISL campaign with a 1-2 loss against Jamshedpur FC, Hyderabad FC had time to learn from their fellow team and take necessary measures. And on paper, the team looked quite competitive, to begin with, until the match kicked off at the Vivekananda Yuba Bharati Krirangan in Kolkata.

It took the hosts  as little 25 minutes to score their first from a break as David Williams found himself clear on goal before putting the ball through the legs of the goalie. The lead was doubled by Roy Krishna in the next three minutes before Williams put the outcome beyond any doubt one minute before the 45-minute mark. 

If that wasn’t enough, substitute scored a brace in two minutes to finish the match for ATK with a one-dimensional result of 5-0. And Brown seemed to have no answer to what he had witnessed in the dugout. 

“Everything went wrong. Our preparation for pre-season has been very good. The fitness levels in games in pre-season have been superb. And the results as well. But nothing prepares you for the first game like the first game. And ATK came up trumps,” said Brown at the post-match press conference.

“I thought the system that we played would have suited playing against the system that ATK played in the first game against Kerala. But that proved not to be the case. Anything that could go wrong tonight, did go wrong. I’m coach of the team. I didn’t see the 5-0 result coming. I felt that we could give them a tough game. So, there’s a lot of hard work to be done. It was a poor performance today. We got to get back on the training ground tomorrow and make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Brown further added.