ISL 2022-23: Incredibly happy to have come away with a point: Mumbai City FC head coach Des Buckingham

Mumbai City FC head coach Des Buckingham was delighted to share the spoils with Hyderabad FC as both teams played a thriller at the Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex, Mumbai on Sunday. The match ended in a 3-3 draw as both teams received a point each.

It was a see-saw battle between the reigning ISL champions and the Islanders as the pendulum swung from one team to the other. Mumbai first took a lead in the 23rd minute after Chinglensana Singh scored an own goal. Joao Victor then equalized for the defending champions in the stoppage time of the first half through a penalty.

Halicharan Narzary then put Hyderabad FC in front in the 51st minute but this time Mumbai City FC bounced back in the contest as Greg Stewart found the back of the net in the 67th minute.

Victor scored his second goal of the night with a header to once again put the tourists in front but Alberto Noguera scored in the 85th minute for the team to level the scoreline.

Sharing his thoughts on the game, Des Buckingham said in the post-match press conference, ​​”I don’t think for the coaches, for Manolo (Marquez) and myself, the heart rate may have gone up a little bit high. But now I’m very happy. It’s the first game of the season. We played against a wonderful team with some very good players. Again, a wonderful coach as I spoke about before, and we’re away from home, so to play against the defending champions and to come away with a point, I’m very happy. There is a lot of work to be done. To put ourselves in better positions when we put ourselves in front especially, but the character and the way that the team came back, especially towards the end, we finished very strong.”

Mumbai had dominated the game in the first half but Buckingham feels the penalty changed the momentum going into the second half.

He said, “Yeah, I think the penalty just before half-time changes the momentum going into the start of that second half because there’s no opportunity to respond to that before the first half finishes. But again, we’ve got Jorge Diaz, who played his first game after four weeks. We’ve got some good minutes with him. And I think the most important thing was the changes that were made. They were able to come on and had a really good impact. I spoke before the game about the whole squad and how important the whole squad was going to be to make sure that we could affect change, goals and otherwise. And that’s been the case tonight. So I’m very happy with those players who have come on to have that impact.”

Mumbai City FC will next take on Odisha FC on Saturday at the Mumbai Football Arena.