Abahani coach Mario Lemos expressed his high hope that his side has fair chance on winning the match against Maziya Sports and Recreation Club of the Maldives as he thinks that playing at home ground give them more confidence to win the match in AFC Cup.
He was speaking at a pre-match press conference held on Tuesday at conference room of Bangladesh Football Federation Bhaban.
Abahani Limited will take on Maziya Sports and Recreation Club of the Maldives in their home match of the pre-qualifying stage-1 scheduled to be held today (Wednesday) at Bangabandhu National Stadium at 5 pm.
“Off course we want to start well…… we have a long preparation for the match … my feeling is we’ll win the tomorrow’s (Wednesday) match against Maziya,” said the Portuguese born-Abahani coach. He said he is not content which he has in the present in the team and always try to improve his side and hopes his boys will give their best effort till the last minute to win the match.
Rahmatganj stunned Abahani Limited by 4-3 in tie-breaker and Abahani’s performance was not up to the mark in the last year’s Federation Cup Football tournament.
Replying to a question Abahani’s coach however said Federation Cup result would not hamper their performance in the AFC Cup as he said it’s a different tournament and their performance in the last year in AFC Cup was impressive which he believes his boys will get some motivation prior to the match against Maldives.
Coach Mario Lemos however did not forget to respect his rivals by saying that Maziya is really strong team and we must respect them but we are also strong side in the tournament.
Mario said as they are going to play in the home ground so if there is a mistake in the match they have a chance to rectify it for the second match.
Abahani Limited captain Nabib Newas Jibon said their preparation for the AFC Cup is good so far and as they performed well in the last season of the AFC Cup so they are upbeat to carry out the performance. He said as his coach expects much from him so he thinks that it’s the right time for him to reimbursement his coach’s expectation.
Abahani Limited will play their away match on February 12 in Maldives.
