Mumbai City eye an Indian first at the Asian Champions League
MUMBAI: That Mumbai City FC have been eyeing bigger mountains to climb than just ISL was evident after it came under the City Football Group (CFG). The 2022 AFC Champions League, which they earned the right to play after winning the 2020-21 ISL Shield, is the first big adventure in that. Mumbai City will be the second Indian club to participate in the Asia’s apex club event after FC Goa last year.
“There’s excitement in the group, but we also need to make sure we’re clear on what we want to do and how we want to do it,” Mumbai City head coach Des Buckingham said from Riyadh. “It will be a good experience, but we don’t want to be here to make up the numbers.”
Mumbai City will open their campaign on Friday against Al-shabab FC, the 2010 semi-finalists. Also in the group is Iraq’s Air Force SC and the Abu-dhabi based Al Jazira. All of them are vastly experienced with Air Force Club beating Bengaluru FC in the final of the 2016 AFC Cup.
“It’s almost a sense of the unknown that we’re going into, and that for me is an exciting unknown. A lot of these players have never played outside India, at this level of competition and against such quality of players,” Buckingham said.
Mumbai City were fifth in the last ISL, not the finish they were looking for after a strong start. However, the English coach believes the young squad— which wore a different look to Sergio Lobera’s Isl-winning 2020-21 side—will take learnings from ISL into the Champions League, for which the players had a two-week training camp in Abu Dhabi.
“At this level, if you give teams opportunities to open space (and because) technically and tactically they are superior to what we have been playing against, they will punish you. So we need to be smart when we don’t have the ball,” Buckingham said.
Apart from FC Goa , who picked up three points from three draws in six games, Mumbai City don’t have “any comparisons to draw ourselves with”. Yet, Buckingham said the team is out to script its “own relative success and history”. “To do that, we will try to be the first Indian team to win a game at this level.”