“Abahani Dhaka are good in transitions,” says ATK Mohun Bagan head coach Juan Ferrando ahead of their AFC Cup playoffs

After winning against Sri Lanka’s Blue Star SC, ATK Mohun Bagan will look to win against Bangladesh’s Abahani Dhaka to make their way through to the AFC Cup group stage. Ahead of the game, head coach Juan Ferrando addressed the media and spoke on different topics in and around the game.

Ferrando shared how he has major respect for Abahani Dhaka as he shared how he has looked into some of their recent games and feels that can be a very tough competition. He said, “We have a lot of respect for the opponent because it’s the same case as a week ago. It’ll be a playoff game in 90 minutes and the players from both teams will give their best. It’s a very difficult game and we give 100% respect to the opponents.”

“Our target is to watch their last 5-6 games. It’s difficult to know the teams in this competition as they didn’t play against Valencia. But in the league, the Bashundhara Kings are the biggest team and they played very well against them. They controlled the spaces and played well against them,” Ferrando added. Abahani Limited Dhaka recently drew 2-2 against league leaders Bashundhara Kings. Abahani were very good in the recent fixture against the Kings with their forwards Dori and Daniel Colindres both scoring goals to deny the Kings a win.

Ferrando shared how Abahani are great in transition play and can be a handful for them in the playoff fixture. Players like Colindres and Raphael Augusto can create spaces and control them during transitions giving Abahani the major upper hand. “Tomorrow’s opponents are great in transitions, everyone knows about (Raphael) Augusto who played in India and about the other foreigners. They create great spaces and we need to control them tomorrow,” Juan Ferrando added.

Speaking about injury concerns, a few players are out of contention but Ferrando wants to hold it till the last minute to take a call. Senior members like Roy Krishna and Sandesh Jhingan who missed out on the previous matches are still a major doubt for this game. But the SPaniard has complete trust in his others players and feels that he has deep enough squad to replace them with others. “I trust in my 28 players so it’s not a problem for me when someone like Amrinder (Singh) is injured. He had problems with his back and Arsh (Anwer) is there. If Arsh isn’t ready, there is Subrata (Paul). If Pritam (Kotal) isn’t ready, we have (Gursimrat) Gill. We have options and that’s most important for me,” he added.

“We will wait (for Sandesh and Roy) until the last moment. Sometimes it’s necessary to change the squad, but sometimes you have problems. To be honest, I have to wait until the last training before deciding the lineup. We will decide about the squad tomorrow,” Ferrando concluded.

ATK Mohun Bagan will host Mario Lemos’ Abahani Dhaka Limited in the AFC Cup Playoffs as the Mariners aim to join Group D that already has Gokulam Kerala, Bashundhara Kings and Maziya Sport and Recreation.