Mohammedan Sporting Club termed the win against arch-rivals Abahani equivalent to winning the final and eyed inspiration for the upcoming challenges in the Bangladesh Premier League at the post match conference yesterday. Meanwhile, Abahani’s Iranian coach Ali Akbar Pormoslemi blasted Mohammedan for playing negative football.
Mohammedan manager Amirul Islam Babu was buoyant with the victory and he had every reason to as the win over Abahani came after six matches and two years. “We treated the match as the final, we were determined to win the match at any cost, the causes were, we wanted to prove that Mohammedan has improved day by day and now stands as a balanced side, secondly we have not beaten Abahani for a long time and lastly we want to use the victory as the resurgence point ahead of the Bangladesh Premier League where we stand fourth at the moment,” said Babu.
Jose Rui Capella Batista, the Portuguese coach of Mohammedan praised the teamwork and said, “All the credit goes to the players who performed to their best, it was a big win today, yes I admit that luck was in favour of us as Abahani wasted a couple of chances, but that’s football, we also missed a number of chances, my concentration was not to concede a goal and in the second half the team was a little defensive, I think moving to the final was important.”
Ossuseni Zongo, the Burkina Faso forward whose deflected shot turned as the match winner, thought it was the teamwork that made all the difference. “We were 11 warriors in the field, victory came through their overall team work and I am happy to see my team in the final,” he said.
Ali, on the other hand, said Mohammedan played negative. “It is not perfect sporting spirit, they inserted six to seven players in their defence,” he said. “It’s not positive football, moreover we created a number of chances but our forwards could not utilise those, moreover our defence made a mistake and Mohammedan scored the goal, I think my players did not produce the performance that makes then champions, Abahani did not play well,” said the Iranian.
Abahani defender Shujon thought he could have done better in the first-half when his mistake helped Mohammedan score the only goal. “ I would have held the position instead of making the final charge, I committed a mistake but that was not the whole story, our forward squandered a good number of chances and I can only call it as an unfortunate one, our forwards also I think lacked the required cohesion,” said the Abahani skipper.
