ISL: We don’t want to be the same as last season: Mumbai City FC head coach Des Buckingham

Mumbai City FC head coach Des Buckingham doesn’t want to be the same as last season despite savoring success in the Hero Indian Super League 2022-23 edition. The Englishman led the Islanders to Hero League Shield trophy after the club remained unbeaten in the first 18 matches of the season.

Mumbai clinched the trophy after winning 14 out of their 20 matches in the league stage and bagged a total of 46 points, the highest ever in the history of the ISL. Ergo, Mumbai City FC ticked all the right boxes in the league stage of the ninth edition of the league.

But, Mumbai City FC’s run in the tournament was ended by Bengaluru FC as they lost on penalties (9-8) in the second leg of the semifinal.

Buckingham said that they will retain 70-80% of what worked well for them and they will make a few minor changes in order to get the desired results.

“We don’t want to be the same as last season,” Buckingham stated in a recent media interaction in Mumbai before the squad flew to Thailand for pre-season.

“Last season was very successful for us for many reasons, and we were able to do what we did, but we can’t do the same again. We need to recognise what worked well and we don’t want to throw it all out and change everything. We want to build on the success that we had and we want to be as successful as we can. So we will retain 70 or 80 percent of what worked well and we need to adapt and we need to evolve and that’s the beauty of the approach that we’ve taken,” he explained.

The Mumbai City FC’s gaffer believes it is more important to follow the right process and play with the right intent and is hopeful that the results will take care of themselves.

“Everybody wants the Shield and everybody will say the same thing, but I won’t. Whenever we spoke last year never once did we speak about winning the trophy even once. For me, winning a trophy is the cherry on top of what we ended up seeing – which was the playing style and players being able to showcase what they can do and us providing the platform for players to do the best they can do. And then hoping that we can hold ourselves to the performances internally and making the players aware of what that is and what the levels are and how they can contribute,” Buckingham stated.

The Islanders will look to continue the good show in the next season and the players will aim to deliver the goods. Buckingham will also aim to get the best out of the players to once again guide them on the right track.