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Mumbai, 11 October 2019: After a fantastic last season in which they finished third, Mumbai City FC will aim to their lay hands on the coveted Hero Indian Super League trophy as the sixth season gets underway from 20 October 2019. The head coach of Mumbai City FC, Jorge Costa from Portugal, is positive that his revamped side will give it their all to achieve this target.
One of the biggest challenges faced by the Portuguese coach in the last season was adapting to Indian football. One year into the job, Costa looks more comfortable and confident with his team.
”Adapting to the football and to the culture here in India was my biggest challenge. I‘ve worked in different countries around the world but this is a different challenge. Last year was my first experience in Asia and I’m here to change things. This is what the club expects, for me to change and improve some things. I’m not here to be a boss; I hope to deliver what the club expects of me and that I can bring some of my experience,” said the 47-year-old.
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The Portuguese coach believes that Mumbai City FC, or the Islanders as they are fondly known, has an improved contingent this year, “We have a better team this year. I am very happy with the squad, as we have more options and we're confident that we will perform better than last season. However, we have to work hard every day to get better and better. Sometimes we have to play few matches without much of a gap and sometimes there will be a long break between matches. But I have faith in my team and trust my players to be ready for any situation,” said Costa.
Mumbai City FC did not have the best of starts last season, winning only one of their first four matches. Costa soon picked up the pieces and Mumbai City FC remained unbeaten for their next nine matches. “During our pre-season in Thailand last year we won almost all of our games. But when the league started we realised that we had a lot of work to do. I realised that my team was not so good and the level was much more than I expected. It was my mistake, the level of football is much better than I thought. Naturally, it was a lesson learnt the hard way and I want to make sure that we don't repeat this mistake this season.”
