We don’t want to be here just to make up the numbers: Buckingham

That Mumbai City FC have been aiming to scale bigger peaks than just the Indian Super League (ISL) was evident after they came under the City Football Group (CFG) umbrella. The 2022 AFC Champions League—which they earned the right to play in after winning the 2020-21 ISL Shield — is the first big adventure in that direction.

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Mumbai City will only be the second club from India to participate in the continental event after FC Goa, who drew and lost three games each last year. The Des Buckingham-coached Mumbai City will open their Group B campaign in Riyadh on Friday against Al-Shabab FC, the 2010 semi-finalists who have competed in the tournament nine times before. Also in the group is Iraq's Air Force Sports Club (Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya), with five previous appearances, and the Abu-Dhabi based Al Jazira. All vastly more experienced and established teams compared to the Indian club that finished fifth this ISL season.

Yet, Buckingham’s Mumbai City are out to script their “own relative success and history”, as the Englishman says in this chat. Excerpts:

You’ve had one eye on the ACL throughout the ISL season. Now that it’s finally here, what’s the word to sum up the feeling?

I think excitement. It’s been there all season, and now it has arrived. It’s one thing being excited, but we also need to make sure we’re clear on what we want to do and how we want to do it. Excitement can only take you so far. It will be a good experience to be part of this competition, but we don’t want to be here just to make up the numbers. We want that excitement to create good memories for us in terms of performance and results.

When you compete in a tournament that has been earmarked as significant from the viewpoint of the club and the CFG group, is there added pressure to make a mark in it?

Not really—not that it’s been passed to me, anyway. This is relatively new in terms of teams coming from India into this competition. We haven’t really got any comparisons to draw ourselves with. We certainly don’t know where we could be or should be; I think we won’t know that till a couple of years later when we get more opportunities to come to this competition. So, it’s almost a sense of the unknown that we’re getting into, and that for me is an exciting unknown. A lot of these players have never played outside India, a lot of them haven’t played at this level of competition and a lot of them would therefore have never played against such quality of players. It’s a good chance for them to test themselves to see where they are and where they can compete.

It’s been a quick turnaround from the ISL, which didn’t end the way you wanted. Is it good that the players could move on to a new challenge soon after a short break?

You have to. Whether it is football or life, you can’t dwell and look back. You must reflect, but now is not the time to reflect fully. We do take the learnings, and the good learnings too apart from the things that we need to do better. The good thing for us is that we have a really good competition that only a handful of players so far have been fortunate enough to play in. You could see the mind shift and reset after those 10 days (break) when they arrived in Abu Dhabi (for a two-week training camp in the lead-up to the tournament).

What are those learnings that you take from the ISL season into this tournament?

Looking at our playing group last year from the year before, it was very different. It was losing key players at key times, which didn’t help. We have some very good players here, a very young playing group with some wonderful experience and playing time last year. That would put us in a very good position not just going into this competition but also for the next season as well.

In this tournament, we need to be smart. At this level in particular, if you give players opportunities on your goal and teams opportunities to open space up, technically and tactically they are superior to what we have been playing against. And they will punish you. So we need to be smart to limit those opportunities when we don’t have the ball. And then make sure that when we do get the opportunity with the ball, we’re clinical. We averaged 15 shots at goal in the ISL season. Again, I’ve only got Goa’s statistics from last year. They had on an average 2 shots on goal in this competition. We know the chances will become limited, so it’s important in those key moments that we take them. So, limit one end or get punished, and maximise what we get.

You called it a young playing group. It has been pitted against vastly more established sides and players. What do you tell the boys?

To believe in what they do. They take the field because they are good enough to, otherwise somebody else would. So they have to believe in their own abilities first. And then my and the staff’s job is to surround them in a positive environment to make sure that when they take the field, they can show what they can do. They’re not stressed, not worried, not under pressure and they’ve got everything they need to perform at their highest level.

What are your objectives for this tournament?

I don’t want to draw a line on it. But we want to create our own relative success and history. To do that, we will try to be the first Indian team to win a game at this level. Now whether that’s the first game, second or might take to the sixth, but that’s certainly a target we’re striving to achieve. We’ve got other internal measures: our playing style, principles and how we go about doing the things that you see on the field.

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