I-League Media

CHENNAI: Chennai City FC gear up to face the Steelmen from Bengaluru in the round 13 Hero I-League encounter at the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium in Chennai tomorrow (March 8, 2017).

The home team have had a woeful run of late and were denied all three points on Sunday by a late equaliser from DSK Shivajians, leaving them at the ninth spot on the table.

Moreover, they face two tough teams in their last two home games in Bengaluru and Kingfisher East Bengal. In a scenario where points are of paramount importance, they have to punch above their weight and hope to knock their illustrious opponents on Wednesday out.

Coach V Soundararajan acknowledged as much and commented, “Bengaluru FC is one of the best sides and have experienced Indian internationals. It’s a golden chance for us to test ourselves against one of the best sides.”

He added further, “They are well organised. We need to go all out tomorrow to churn out the best possible result. It is an incentive to go and beat the best. So we will try and do that.”

Chennai City will be without the services of Raju Yumnam while Edwin Vanspaul is a doubt.

The visitors, coming off a 1-0 win over Minerva Punjab that ended their seven-game winless streak, have been struggling to finish off the chances they have been creating and head coach Albert Roca sounded hopeful of taking their chances on Wednesday.

“I think we are one of the best squads and have a lot of options to score. But we are not lucky in front of goal. We have to resolve the issue and we have brought in Marjan Jugovic. We can’t put pressure on him but he has enough quality to help us. All the players are involved in this and we have to resolve this collectively,” he professed.

The Spanish coach also felt that his philosophy of keeping the ball and building attacks from the back will really help India but his players need to adapt. He stated, “My philosophy is one where the ball is more important. Building out from the back is paramount. This is not something very common here. Even if the result doesn’t come, I can’t change. India has to understand this way. Indians are more like Spanish people. As they are not physically big, they need to be more tactical and technical. The better way for India to grow is by embracing this approach. It’s my humble opinion.”

Bengaluru won’t be without the services of Amrinder Singh and Arindam Bhattacharya is expected to continue between the sticks.

Both Chennai City and Bengaluru don’t boast a brilliant attack and need to finish off their chances on Wednesday in what will be a charged atmosphere with a lot of fans expected to come in for a game between two sides from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

The match is scheduled at 07:05 PM and it’ll be aired live on Ten 2.