Chennai: Chenniyin FC coach Marco Materazzi is not worried about the lack of practice by his players due to rains and said he was confident of his side doing well against leaders Atletico de Kolkata in their Indian Super League match on Tuesday.
Addressing the pre-match press conference, Materazzi said, "We are like Cinderella. We are in Chennai and every day rain. We did not have the pitch to train and the ground now.
You saw the last game when we put our heart in the pitch.
"We wanted to win against Mumbai. If we show the same attitude on the pitch tomorrow and then we have to win. To me and my guys the positive result is very important," said the 2006 World Cup winner Italian.
On his game plan against the Kolkata team, Materazzi said, "We try to play like how we played against Mumbai FC.
Without doubt Kolkata is a very good team. We have a bigger opportunity to close the gap. Then after the game we will speak about the result you want."
Materazzi said that the key players of Kolkata not playing on Tuesday due to suspensions will not be a advantage.
Kolkata team captain Luis Garcia said his team will hopefully win.
"My prediction is that hopefully we win. Chennaiyin is a very good team and every player is performing well. They have good midfield, good defence. The players have the quality. We also heard that the pitch is not very good and it is very hard. So, we know how hard it is to play here. Hopefully tomorrow is good for us and we will win," he said.
On long gap between their last tie and Tuesday's match, Garcia said, "It is important for our team to take rest as we did not get much rest in our five games. It is hard and tough to play every three days. Now we have this week and this is good for players as they can approach to the game with full capacity."
About the lack of training on the eve of the match at the ground, Garcia said, "Everyone in my team is fit to play but it's important to train before the match. That is the only way to know the pitch where you are going to play. The rule of ISL is that we are going to train and play before the match day.
Since we did not practice on the match pitch, we do not know how high it is going to be or how low and what kind of starts we need. However, we cannot complain."
"I always say when a bad situation like this, weather or the ground is always for both the teams and we cannot make excuses. We knew that it is not going to be the best conditions but we have to adapt very fast and try to do our work successfully."
On how difficult to play a match when the main coach is not in the bench, Garcia said, "It is different. We will miss the coach on the bench giving you tips and the directions that the team have to go. But, he has very good assistants on the bench and he can be very able to do everything that the main coach would be doing. However, you have to focus on the game and tried to do your best."
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