Teams can't compete with Mumbai City and ATKMB in long run- Manolo Marquez

Hyderabad FC face Kerala Blasters on Saturday at the G.M.C Balayogi Athletic Stadium, Hyderabad at 7:30 pm. Head Coach Manuel Marquez addressed the media ahead of the clash. Hyderabad FC are in a very good momentum winning five out of six games and Manolo believes that the game is going to be an equal affair.

"Not only final, how the games against Kerala were last season all of them were very very equal. In the first leg Kerala won 1-0 and in the second game we won 2-1 but they had a lot of chances, in that we had very good luck. And the final, it's true that we scored the goal in the final moment but more or less the draw was fair. Finally via the penalties we got the title, but all the games were difficult for both teams with possibilities. I think that tomorrow will be similar," he said.

The last time Hyderabad FC conceded a goal was against Mumbai City FC in their first game of the season. He said " It's true, obviously. Five consecutive clean sheets are there but it's true that the opponents had chances to score in every game, even Goa missed a penalty. Last year the questions were different, we were on top but we used to concede one in every game. Conceding one goal, you don't always lose but the teams that want to finish high up the table don't concede. But this is not our main target, I think we can play better".

Manolo says that other teams can't compete with Mumbai City or ATK Mohun Bagan in the long term. "People have to understand that other teams, we can't compete with Mumbai City Or ATKMB in long term. In a single game we can beat every team, we have a good team.

But these teams they have a lot of players, even if you look at the bench of Mumbai yesterday with Noguera, Fall, Vikram Prathap and Vinit Rai. In my country this is the same, Barcelona and Real Madrid and other teams they play good, some of them get good results but in a longer term Barcelona and Real madrid are in the top two. I understood that in my first year".

Ivan Vukomanovic, the head coach of Kerala Blasters FC believes that you have to be perfect in every aspect in order to get a good result against Hyderabad FC. "We are facing one of the best teams in the league. The team that's been working with consistency in the last three years with the same coach, staff and approach. If you want to beat that kind of team you have to be perfect," he said.

Kerala Blasters likes to focus on their weakness and strength. He added, "We prefer to talk about ourselves in the meeting about all the things that we want to do and how we want to do, the things we want to improve and fix. Rather than being too busy with the opponents, we have to be aware of how to close down certain things and with this kind of mentality and positive mind we can achieve many things."

Defender Bijoy will miss the game due to a knock he received in a friendly game, Ivan Vukomanovic added.