ATK head coach Molina hails team work for ISL title

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.
Asked how happy he was about the performance of Indian

players, Molina said, "I think all the Indian players did a great job from the beginning. I was absolutely impressed about them, how they worked. They want to learn, they asked me how to improve their game. That was what impressed me. They are professional players and they have quality. Debjit did a great job. All of them, Pritam Kotal, Lalrindika Ralte, Keegan Pereira, I am absolutely happy. They did a great job."
Asked if he went blank after Jewel Raja scored from the final penalty to hand ATK the victory, Molina said, "No, I don't know. I don't remember what was in my mind. But I was absolutely happy after the final penalty. My family is here. They came here yesterday to watch the match."

Meanwhile, Kerala head coach Steve Coppell expressed his frustration at the scheduling in the lead-up to final.
"We didn't lose, we drew the game. We lost the league on penalties, it's cool and I would like to congratulate Kolkata and the game was even and anybody could have won, and two very tired teams played. From our point of view we played three games in seven days and we had to travel to Delhi when we should not have had to travel to Delhi (for the second semifinal leg)," he said.
Before the final, Coppell had also said that as his side had finished higher (in second place) than Delhi (third place) after the league stage, Kerala should have played their second leg semifinals at home here.

"I don't want to sound like sour grapes because Kolkata have won it. But we should have not had to travel to Delhi and after the game in Delhi we could not get any flights to fly out of Delhi and we had to stay in Delhi for a day and the next day we had to fly back to Kochi.
"Because of air ticket issues we had to split the team in five different groups and the players started flying back at 5 o'clock in the morning and the last players got to the hotel (here) at 8 o'clock at night," said the Englishman who has coached English Premier League sides, including Manchester City.

"(Having all that in mind) I thought my players were fantastic and I can only compliment them on giving so much of themselves in the final match and throughout the league and the Kerala fans made the occasion and on behalf of the players and the support staff I would like to say thank you to the fans and sorry that we could not bring the trophy but it was a great experience.