ISL 2019 | Odisha deserved to win against Hyderabad FC, reckons Josep Gombau
Odisha FC head coach Josep Gombau reckons his team’s 3-2 win over Hyderabad FC was well deserved after a frustrating run of fixtures. While Carlos Delgado, Xisco Hernandez, and Martin Guedes found the target for Odisha, a Vinit Rai’s red card saw Hyderabad score twice in the second half.
With a two-goal at the break, Odisha looked well on course to register only their second win in 2019-20 edition of the Hero Indian Super League. And despite being reduced to 10 men, the home side went on to score the third goal and hold on for three vital points. The win propelled Odisha up to sixth place in the table, just one point behind NorthEast United in fifth.Â
“We played three games here. We had one win, one draw and one loss. I think that maybe last week we deserved more and this week, I think we deserved to win,” Gombau told the official ISL website after the match on Wednesday.
“I think that the first half belonged to us. In the second half, in the very beginning, we had three chances to go 3-0 up. If we had scored, it would have been game over. After that, there was a penalty and a red card, which makes it 2-1. We scored to make it 3-1, and after 3-2, it wasn’t the best finish to the game. But at the end, we won and we deserved to get this win,” he said.
The Spaniard also revealed his thoughts on the brilliant move that culminated in their second goal scored by Xisco.Â
“The second goal was a good action. It was a good finish, one-two with Xisco and Jerry (Mawihmingthanga). But I’m happy. It is important to us,” he said.Â
With 10 games to go in the league phase, Odisha will finally get to shift their base back to their original home ground in Bhubaneswar, but they will have to make a stop at Goa to take on the league’s third-placed side. Â
“We played eight games all away from our home. And now we are going to Goa for our next game. And finally, in the 10th game of the league, we will have our first home game. I think that this league is very equal. We lost three games and in all these games, the difference was one goal. We drew a lot of games, which we should have won. I think we need to go game by game. We have 10 more games in front of us. We need to play these 10 games the best we can, and after that, we will see where we are,” Gombau added.
