Home ›› 24 Aug 2021 ›› Sport
Bangladesh Premier League champions Basundhara Kings will face ATK Mohun Bagan of India in their last group stage match of the AFC Cup today at the National Stadium of Maldives, needing a win to secure a berth in the inter-zone play-off semi-finals.
Basundhara won their first match against Mazya Sports and Recreation Club of Maldives by 2-0, and in the second match, they ended with a goalless draw with Bengaluru FC.
Kings is the only club in the group yet to concede any goal, and their Spanish coach Oscar Bruzon is banking on his defence.
“We have a rock-solid defence. We have not conceded a single goal in this difficult tournament. Our confidence is we have lost only one game this season. And I think tomorrow is not going to be the second one,” Oscar said in the press conference ahead of the game on Monday.
Mohun Bagan is a famous football club from Kolkata with a rich history and have a good collection of Indian and foreign players that Bruzon admits, but he is not afraid of facing them,
“We have been analysing all our rivals very, very deep. For the last months, not only before the game. ATK Mohun Bagan is a performing and historic club. They have a very well-defined game model. They are a team fully confident when they need to defend their result,” said Bruzon.
Bruzon will find one of his countrymen, Antonio Lopez Habas as the coach in Mohun Bagan, his former colleague, but the Basundhara coach thinks that it has both kinds of impacts.
“I know very well Antonio Lopez. We were colleagues in Spain, and he knows me very well too. Tomorrow we need to push a little bit more if we want to win the match. They have exactly the needed players to implement this game model. Let’s see what happens tomorrow on the pitch,” optimistic Bruzon told in the press conference.
Mohun Bagan, with six points from their two games, have a slight edge over Basundhara as they just need to avoid defeat to qualify for the next round.
Lopez, ahead of the game, showed that he also did his homework about the rivals and will be gunning for goals against Basundhara Kings.
“They defended against Bengaluru by giving chances. We analysed them and saw that they conceded 15 corners, 12 free-kicks and a lot of trouble while defending. A good defence does not concede chances. Obviously, we know they are a good team. We respect them,” said the Mohun Bagan coach.
The green and maroons will be missing one of their key players, French midfielder Hugo Boumous who received two yellow cards in the last two matches, but Lopez is not very anxious about it.
“Boumous is not in the team. I am never thinking about a player who is not in the team. Boumous is out, and we will have to win without him”, he said.
Kings’ rock-solid defence could be penetrated by the captain of Mohun Bagan Roy Krishna, a forward from Fiji who has scored two goals in the two matches.
Though Bruzon has the shield named Khaled Shafei, an Iranian defender with a towering height of 6 feet 2 inches, who has the experience of playing in the Korean league and Iran’s top flight.
But to score the winning goal, the kings will be relying on their two Latin recruits, Robinho from Brazil and Raul Becerra from Argentina.
