Mumbai, Oct 28 (FN Agency) Mumbai City FC head coach Petr Kratky shared his dissatisfaction after playing out a 1-1 draw against Odisha FC in the final fixture of matchweek six in the Indian Super League (ISL) at the Mumbai Football Arena here.It was an end-to-end battle from offset, where both teams created numerous goalscoring opportunities throughout the game. The Kalinga Warriors broke the deadlock first with RoyKrishna capitalising on the hosts’ defensive error to bring his side on frontfoot on Sunday night. However, Kratky’s men displayed a quick reaction as Nikolaos Karelis netted the equaliser with a simple tap-in in the 23rd minute. The goal came from a beautiful piece of play from Jon Toral and Lallianzuala Chhangte, who combined well with each other at the edge of the box, and the latter provided a defense-splitting pass to the Greek forward, who made no mistake to strike his thirdgoal in the ISL 2024-25 season.Kratky believed that his team found themselves back on track after scoring the equaliser. However, the head coach expressed his displeasure with how Mumbai City FC played in the opening quarterof the match. “I think we started very poorly, to be honest. First 20 minutes, there were a lot of mistakes. Obviously, we got the goal from one of them, but the football wasn’t exactly so. We have to look at that,” Kratky said in the post-match press conference.“The start of the game wasn’t ideal, but then as soon as we got the goal, we started improving as the game went. We got better and better, and we created goalscoring opportunities. I’m very happy with that,” he added. Despite the Islanders generating numerous attacking moves with Toral, Karelis, Noufal PN, and others in the second half, they couldn’t convert those chances as the game ended on level terms.
Kratky urged his players to be more precise in terms of converting chances. Shedding light on their overall performance against Odisha FC, Kratky remarked, “I think it was a clear goalscoring opportunity where we should convert, but as I said, in terms of how the game went, I think we started poorly today, but as the game progressed, we got better and better in football. We find the spaces where we want to find and score goals—very good goals,” he said.“Again, there are a lot of positives. Obviously, we are sad because we wanted to win. We have an opportunity to do so, but we have to improve. We have to be a little bit more dominant across the game and get three points because it’s very important in this season,” he continued. Former Arsenal midfielder Jon Toral clocked his first 90 minutes on the pitch against Odisha FC for the very first time this season. Kratky had words of praise for Toral, who played a pivotal role in the Islanders’ forward line. Speaking in context, he said, “I think everyone saw John can dribble, and I think he was very good today for us. He’s a very good player; we know that. He’s coming back for a little setback, and he’s settling down in India because it’s his first time here as well with his wife and kids. He was very good today, so I’m very happy for him.” “The whole team worked very hard today, and we will try to do our best. I’m very pleased with his performance, but there were also others who did well today,” Kratky signed off, commanding his players’ hard work and fighting spirits.