Chennaiyin FC head coach Bozidar Bandovic is not happy?

Chennaiyin FC head coach Bozidar Bandovic was dejected with his team’s second-half performance following their 2-2 draw against SC East Bengal in the Hero Indian Super League (ISL) match at the Tilak Maidan Stadium in Vasco, Goa on Wednesday.

The Marina Machans raced into two-goal lead-through goals from Hira Mondal (2’ OG) and Ninthoinganba Meetei (15’) in the early stages of the match. Darren Sidoel (61’) pulled one back with a well-hit free-kick and the equaliser finally came through Lalrinliana Hnamte (90+1’) which ended the game in a draw.

Match Report: Spirited SC East Bengal fight back to steal a point against Chennaiyin FC

With this draw, Chennaiyin FC keeps their semi-final hopes alive. Bandovic side stands on the sixth spot in the league table with 19 points from 14 matches.

Head coach Bandovic addressed the media after the game.

Here are some excerpts from his press conference:

A late equaliser happened last night as well. Do you think your team wasn’t able to keep the momentum?

I need to split my team into two halves. The first half was excellent. And the second half was not good because we didn’t do what we did in the first half. We didn’t keep the ball and of course, we made some changes, we had some problems. We cannot concede a goal like this.

The team looked very disappointed after the full-time whistle. Do you think they will be low in confidence after this result?

We need to bring confidence to the team, we need to use this first half that we played very well with the two goals. But football is like this and we need to keep trying and keep our mentality positive and try to win the next game. Of course, it’s very painful when you lose a game like this and this shouldn’t have happened. We needed a win today. We did take one point, there are six more games and we need to keep playing and keep giving everything and try to win the games.

How big of a setback is this for your semi-finals hopes?

We needed a win today. We did take one point, there are six more games and we need to keep playing and keep giving everything and try to win the games.