Mumbai City Challenge Up Next For Hyderabad FC

Goa: After an unlucky defeat to kick off their Indian Super League campaign earlier this week, Hyderabad FC is back in action when they take on the defending champions Mumbai City FC, in a crunch game at Fatorda on Saturday.

The game between Mumbai City and Hyderabad will kick off at 9:30 pm, in what will be the first of its kind in the ISL, moving on from the 5:30 pm kickoffs, which will surely have an impact on the quality of the game.

Mumbai is fresh from a comfortable victory over FC Goa, as star striker Igor Angulo started off his campaign with a brace, in fine fashion. New signing Ygor Catatau was also on the scoresheet while Ahmed Jahouh had a pretty strong outing as well.

HFC Head Coach Manolo Marquez believes that it will not be an easy game for his side. “We want to win, of course, we can win, but we know the quality of the opponents. Mumbai City knows how to manage situations in games and are strong in set-pieces and open play as well,” he said.

“They want to keep the ball and so do we. So, I am sure it will be a close contest at Fatorda tomorrow,” he added.

Hyderabad FC was dominant for most of the night against Chennaiyin FC in their first game of the season but not finishing their chances cost them all three points. One mistake was all it took for the Marina Machans to run away with a win leaving Hyderabad playing catchup in the league table early in the season.

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“It is usually better to start the season with a win and many agree that we did not deserve to lose that game. This is football and we now play against a strong team next,” said Manolo.

“But we have chances to beat the strongest teams in the league and we will give our best in this game,” he added.

About early team news, Mumbai City will be without Vignesh Dakshinamurthy for this game while Manolo Marquez revealed that Halicharan Narzary will miss this clash with the knock he picked up on Tuesday.

Hyderabad FC is yet to register a win in four outings against The Islanders but early in the season, there is not too much to separate the two sides, who will battle it out in a closely fought contest.

“These statistics are not really important tomorrow. They have a strong squad and we know it will be a difficult game for us,” said the HFC Head Coach.

The game kicks off at 9:30 pm on Saturday and will be telecasted live on the Star Sports Network with live streaming on Disney+ Hotstar and JioTV.