Mumbai City FC head coach Des Buckingham reckons it is imperative for Indian clubs to continue producing results at the AFC Champions League. In the 2021-22 season, FC Goa was able to qualify for the tournament and earned three draws as they had done a decent job.
Subsequently, in 2022-23 season, Mumbai City impressed in their first ever campaign at the competition. The Islanders won two matches against Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya and finished at the second place in Group B. However, despite these two big wins, they could not qualify for the playoff stages.
Buckingham believes it is important for the Indian clubs to continue the good show at this big tournament and if they can do so, it will be of great help to Indian football.
“There was FC Goa who came in before us and picked up three draws, we came in and picked up two wins and a draw to give us seven points. I think it’s important whoever comes in next year continues to show the progress of the league because I don’t think there were many groups across East (Zone) and West (Zone) where one team got heavily beaten consistently,” said Des Buckigham, in a podcast with Spotify.
“For us, we have not only shown that we can compete but also beat them at this level. The more opportunities we get, whether it’s Indian football or Mumbai City FC, I’d like to think that we can continue to show that we can.”
There is no doubt that Indian football can show an upward swing in their improvement graph if they play well against the top clubs of Asia.
Buckingham feels the young players can learn a lot by playing against the best in the business.
“I think it’s huge (to participate in AFC competitions), as a player and as a coach you want to compete against the best, and at the club level, it’s the AFC Champions League (ACL). We have the I-League back in India, now we have the Indian Super League (ISL), which provides the opportunity for development of professional players, which will be in its eighth season,” explained Buckingham.
“To say how the AFC Champions League is an extra development layer on top, it will only further expose our players to that league, to compete against, what is Asia’s best players, staff, team. The more opportunities they get, the more experience they’ll get, which will further enhance their development.”
In fact, Mumbai City FC were missing the services of their talisman striker Igor Angulo in the AFC Champions League but the club was still able to come up with decent performances.
“We were missing our leading goalscorer Igor Angulo (in the ACL), so we had to adapt and change the setup. What I was really grateful for was that the club supported us to get across to Abu Dhabi two weeks before the ACL. And that two-week camp which we had in Abu Dhabi, we played friendly matches and picked up (positive) results against them prior to the ACL,” recalled Buckingham. “It gave us two weeks to prepare and plan, and do something different, which maybe we did not do in the ISL. Because I thought that would be important going against the powerhouses in Asia. Those two weeks and those two friendlies we had over there really prepared us for what we were going into (ACL).”
