Atletico's manager Jose Molina hails team spirit after ISL triumph

A triumphant Atletico de Kolkata head coach Jose Molina has hailed team work as the reason for his side’s victory against Kerala Blasters in the summit clash of the Indian Super League.

“We played as a team, attacking as a team and defending as a team. Of course, you need good players to be a good team but I told the players from day one we need to play as a team not as individual players,” Molina said after ATK lifted the ISL title for the second time in three years.

“Sometimes you have great players but not a great team. I don’t like that. I like eleven players on the pitch working together. All my players understand my philosophy and they played as a team and I am absolutely happy about that.

“The team was different from the one last year, only four players remained (from last year’s squad). Everywhere in the world, the usual league is nine or 10 months long. So, you have time to do different things. But here, it’s just 10-12 weeks and you have to do things fast and win games.

“I think we did great work from the first day. We lost only two matches. In some matches, we could have played better. Finally, we reached the final and played great. We were playing well. Final touches were not good. But finally, we won on penalties,” he said at the post-match press conference after ATK beat Kerala 4-3 via penalty shootout at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium here last night.

Both the sides were locked 1-1 after the regulation 90 minutes and then the 30-minute extra time before settling the issue in the penalty shootout. ATK had beaten Kerala by a solitary goal in the final of the inaugural edition in 2014.

“We wanted to win the match in 90 minutes. We could have gone up 3-1 at half time (had we scored from the chances). But we did not score. The second half was not that good and then we had to be in a penalty shootout,” said the Spaniard who had coached La Liga sides Villarreal.

He revealed that he did not choose the penalty takers and left it to the individual players to take a call on themselves.

Indian player Jewel Raja Shaikh scored ATK’s fifth and final score as his side won the penalty shootout 4-3. Sameehg Doutie, Borja Fernandez and Javier Lara were the other ATK players who found the target in the shootout while Iain Hume’s shot was blocked by Kerala goalkeeper Graham Stack.

“No, I did not choose the players to take the penalties.  Jewel Raja came to me before the shootout and he said he will shoot at number five. I said fine, shoot. Iain Hume came and said he would shoot first and I said go ahead.

“I have to know what the players feel, how tired they were and the kind of pressure they would feel at that point of time when he takes the penalty shoot. If 10 players come and say I will shoot, then I have to pick five. All the players who took the penalties in the match, all of them came to me and said they will shoot. I said go ahead. I did not pick them,” he said.