Odisha FC played out a 2-2 draw against Chennaiyin FC in their recent Indian Super League match at the Tilak Maidan.
The Marina Machans secured the early lead courtesy of a goal from Rahim Ali. However, Odisha FC struck back with Javi Hernandez and ultimately took the lead courtesy of a goal from Jonathas Christian. But Nerijus Valskis’ strike meant that both teams ended up on level pegging and bagged a point each.
Odisha FC’s interim coach Kino Garcia felt that his team has been extremely unlucky in this entire tournament as they once again were unable to pick up all three points from yet another game.
When quizzed whether his team should have won against Chennaiyin, Garcia felt that the Kalinga Warriors did most things right but could not secure the win.
“Yeah, I think so. If you see the chances that we had, and how much we struggled to score a goal. We took 25 shots to score a goal. And they easily scored two goals. They scored on the first chance of the match. But we made a good come back, our team pushed we drew the match. We even had chances to score the third but we couldn’t, that’s football,” said Garcia in the post-match press conference.
The draw has been a massive blow to Odisha FC’s playoff hopes but Garcia aims to fight till the last match. Despite knowing the difficulty, the Spanish tactician is willing to fight for every chance.
“Since there’s points, we say in Spain, if it’s life then there’s hope. So we still are alive. We will keep fighting for that, of course we knew is difficult. But also, we are only two points behind the best season of Odisha FC one record that we can we can pass and just improve the players,” Garcia added.
Kino Garcia is eager to guide Odisha FC to wins in the last three matches of the current campaign. However, he also adds that the players feel that they have been majorly unlucky this season with a few results.
“We want to win every game at the end. We want to beat every team. In every single match we want win. The guys are really disappointed now all the boys are feeling bad because I think that we have kind of been unlucky in some matches that we didn’t get the three points and maybe we deserve in some situations. So of course for our say, this is difficult, but we want to win every game,” the Spaniard concluded.
Odisha FC are currently in the seventh position in the ISL points table with 22 points from 17 games. The Kalinga Warriors are three points behind fourth-placed Jamshedpur FC. But the Men of Steel have three matches in hand over Odisha FC making things very difficult for Kino Garcia’s men.
