On Wednesday, Jamshedpur FC head coach Aidy Boothroyd was delighted after his side finished their season with a clinical 2-0 win over Odisha FC in their last league game in the Indian Super League (ISL) 2022-23.
It was an all-important fixture for Odisha FC, with a point enough to put them through to the playoffs. But the Red Miners played their hearts out from the first whistle and deservedly got the lead through Harry Sawyer in the second half. Within a couple of minutes, Ritwik Das doubled the lead, helping Jamshedpur FC pull off an incredible away win.
Odisha FC has to now wait for the result between Bengaluru FC and FC Goa on Thursday to know about their fate of making it to the playoffs.
“People talking about the last four games. But for me the last 10 games have been a huge corner, we’ve returned. You can appreciate the fact that when we’ve lost our captain, Eli Sabia but Pronay Halder comes in and he is magnificent like he has played (as a center-back) all his career, and the same for young Nikhil Barla, he is a 17-year-old and making his ISL debut. It is great for him. A well-deserved debut and Vishal Yadav, was in the goal,” Boothroyd said in the post-match press conference.
“So to be able to call upon younger players, which is what I have done all my career really and bloodied them and stressed them to see whether they handle that. So when you consider that we’ve not got (Rafael) Crivellaro and we’ve not got TP Rehenesh, Eli Sabia is not with us. It means that we’ve got a reasonable squad, a strong squad that we need to keep together,” he added as read in a statement released by ISL. “The first thing you must always say as a coach is that you have to respect the supporters and the people that pay your wages and I have to say, I have absolutely 100% unwavering support. From everybody, from supporters, from staff, from the board, everybody, and when you lose as many as we did. It’s a disappointment and that will bring in new players and get players out. That can be as difficult. I think we deserved to get what we got. It’s not where we want to be, but it’s a good start. And if we create chances and we just have to convert them and we start to keep clean sheets, which is always a good thing,” he concluded.