Santosh Trophy: I will walk out next day if they play like this – Armando Colaco

by Spandan Paul March 22, 2018

It was a stunning performance by the Mizoram team in the second half that saw them register a huge upset win over the pre-tournament favourites Goa, who incidentally can be termed as the strongest team on paper with a coach of a stature of Armando Colaco, who has been the mainstay to record glory that the legendary Goan club Dempo achieved so far. We from FootballCounter investigated the reason behind Goa’s shocking loss and had a nice conversation with the Mizo coach Lalsangzuala Hmar who was really proud of the way his boys dominated. Let’s take a journey to the fallout of Mizoram’s scintillating win over Goa as both teams will look for a win in their next fixtures,today:

What Mr. Armando Colaco had to say regarding his boys’ performance ?

“I am still saying this is the best team we have got; somehow today they couldn’t perform the way they used to in the practise matches. I really don’t have an answer to it as both myself and the other players were shocked. Even the boys broke down after the match and this is not what I wanted from them. ” said Colaco when quizzed about what went wrong in the second half. “ I really don’t know what happened in the second half. They were kicking aimlessly with no movement at all after the goal; they didn’t know what to do. That’s not the football that Armando Colaco likes. I don’t know whether it is the food, weather or anything else that hampered their gameplay  but I’m really shocked with the performance”.

The legendary coach seemed upbeat about his team’s chance as there’s enough time to turn things around for the Goans. “Yes these type of competitive opening game sets the tone to do better in the upcoming matches. They have to show a lot of character and come back strong in the upcoming matches. Hats off to the way Mizoram boys played. Lucky we didn’t concede more goals . I told the boys I would walk away next day if they continues to play like this but then again I’m really surprised and shocked.”

When tickled about the time constraints and preparation ahead of the tournament Colaco brushed aside smartly saying “They trained 15 days under me but that’s not an excuse unless they are too tired playing football which I presume they aren’t; I take the entire blame for this result.”

Mizoram’s side of the story!

Mizoram coach Lalsangzuala Hmar cut across as a happy figure after his side’s emphatic win. He was pleased with the way his boys responded to the change of conditions. “ The ground here is little bit harder than the artificial turf of Aizawl where we trained for the tournament. It was tough for us to cope up to the changes since this was our first match and I’m happy with the performance.”

When asked about what spurred the second half blitz from the Mizo boys Hmar said “We didn’t have an idea about the Goa team except for their coach (laughing); so we held our composure in the first half and studied their game well. We changed the tactics in the second half after analysing and it brought us results”.

Second half saw a plenty of incisive run down the right flank by the seasoned campaigner Lalbiakhlua, the former Aizawl FC and current Mizoram Police FC ,who was playing his 7^th Santosh Trophy as the winger exploited the fragility of Goan defense from the left .

When quizzed about was it a conscious decision to target the left back of Goa in the second half the confident Mizoram coach stated – “ Exactly! The first 15 minutes when I observed ,I saw there’s a plenty of free space between the centre back and their wing back and that’s what we capitalised on in the next half as I told my boys to exploit that huge gap and use the blind sight to switch places after our forward goes in through that gap. We were a bit unlucky not to get more goals ,but I’m definitely happy with my boys performance” .

With 6 players from Chhinga Veng F.C. in Mizoram Premier League who plays together regularly, the co-ordination between the Mizo boys was evident and it was heart-warming to watch them play as an unit. “ Unfortunately we missed 3 regular Micoram Police FC players who couldn’t be with the team due to Mizoram Police training, but we want to put that behind and look forward” gushed the Mizoram tactical king who obtained his coaching license from former Indian team manager Savio Medeira.