Head coach Des Buckingham hints at new look ‘Mumbai City FC’ ahead of their Champions League opener against Al-Shabab

Mumbai City FC will become the second side from India to feature in the AFC Champions League after  FC Goa’s exploits last year. The Islanders will start their continental campaign against Saudi outfit Al-Shabab on 8th April. It will be a challenge for Des Buckingham and his men as they did not even qualify for the playoffs in the Indian Super League.

It will be a tough task for the Islanders to overcome their shortcoming from the ISL as they look to create history and become the first Indian club to win a game in the Champions League. Therefore Des Buckingham shared how people may get to see a different Mumbai City in the Champions League as they set to play against elite Asian teams.

“We’ve had two good opportunities to practice a couple of things, in terms of our playing style and how we want to go about things or different plans we may have to come up with against teams we’re going to come and play against. So, we’ve had two games where we practiced a couple of things, whether or not we use them to start with or whether or not we go to them as part of the gameplan during the game.

“There’s certainly different things we have worked on. The players won as a result of their performances in those games. So, the players are clear on what that looks like as well as being able to build on what we’ve seen in the ISL,” explained the 37-year-old coach.

Mumbai City FC are in Group B and they are clubbed with teams like AL-Shabab, UAE based outfit Al-Jazira and Iraq’s Air Force Club. Speaking on the club’s preparation Des Buckingham highlighted how he has gone to matches of the others teams and have seen their games to learn more about their playing style.

“I think it’s difficult to compare obviously last year’s competition and this year’s. You know whether it was FC Goa last year or us this year. But certainly, the teams that we’ll be competing against; we’ve had the fortune of being in Abu Dhabi the last couple of weeks and we’ve gone to watch Al-Jazira. We went to one of their games and watched that live. Then we went out here the other night. Al-Shabab were playing and we watched their game. So, we’ve had the fortune of watching both of those games live.,” the Englishman added.

Buckingham has assured the fans that despite results not coming their way, the Mumbai City FC tactician has worked on a lot of things including their style of play and rhythm. However, he admits that it will be tough for the Islanders but Buckingham feels that his team is in a good position to take results and challenge the other teams in the Champions League.