Manolo Marquez speaks ahead of our season opener

Hyderabad FC take on a new-look Chennaiyin FC in the first clash for both sides in the 2021-22 edition of the Indian Super League. Ahead of this game, HFC Head Coach Manolo Marquez discusses the team’s pre-season preparations, approaching this crucial encounter and more…

On the pre-season so far…

I am really happy to be back in India for my second season in the ISL. When you start a new season or a new pre-season you want it to be right, but like for every other team, it has been a difficult pre-season, mainly due to the COVID situation in the country.

Every team has been working in a different way this year. Some teams arrived pretty early for pre-season; some teams have had problems with their stay. A few teams were also involved in the Asian tournaments. We have had a two-month pre-season so it is difficult to know how prepared every team is going into this competition.

On the fresh challenges this season…

You have to be positive and optimistic when getting into a new season. But we should make sure that we don’t compare ourselves to the last season. If you ask any coach in the ISL, they will tell you that every team has equal chances to qualify this season.

We want to continue playing good football, keep up the development of our youngsters and show our fans that we can repeat or improve on the last season.

On the approach to the new season…

Yes, we want to win every game, but every other team will want the same. But like we saw with all the draws last season, it is not easy to win games in the ISL, irrespective of the opponent’s league positions.

We want to arrive to the Chennaiyin game in the best possible shape but they have a good team, have been in good form in the pre-season and we know that it is not going to be an easy game.

On the addition of Bart Ogbeche…

Ogbeche is the third top scorer in the ISL history, with three different teams and was a Champion last season. He has been scoring goals all his life. We hope that he can continue it this season as well.

He is a very good player in the ISL, has the experience of playing in a World Cup and is a crucial signing for us.

On the importance of youngsters this year…

We played a lot of Indian youngsters in many games last season. But this season with the four-overseas player rule, a lot of teams have exciting youngsters in their squad and many of them with a great future ahead of them.

But they have to continue their development every day and in every training session and this is the same for every team in the competition. With one more Indian player in the Starting XI, I am pretty sure that the level of Indian football will improve.

On what the fans can expect from HFC…

We have 16 players here from last season so the style of our football will be the same, because most of them know the things that we want from our team. So, the fans can expect that we will entertain them like last season and will work harder to try and qualify this time around.