MUMBAI: Stirred by the fond memories of their historic debut appearance in the AFC Champions League last year, Des Buckingham’s Mumbai City are eager to return to Asian club football’s most elite competition next season. To get there though, they must first win a one-off qualifier against Jamshedpur, set to take place in Manjeri, Kerala on Tuesday, a team that, Buckingham admitted, caused the Islanders problems in their two meetings over the course of the just concluded Indian Super League season.
“Jamshedpur are a good team. They showed that throughout the year, they certainly showed it against us twice,” the English coach told reporters during a virtual press briefing on Sunday.
“They showed it in the last four or five games in the regular season when they found their groove and their way of playing. They caused us problems because they are a good team. They got good individuals and a good coach in Aidy (Boothroyd). So we have to be on top of our game and we need to do everything we can to put ourselves in the position to do what we did in the league stage which was to come away with two results.”
The Asian Football Confederation’s decision to shift its showpiece event for club football from a February-November (spring-to-autumn) window to a September-May (autumn-to-spring) schedule from next season has led to a battle between Jamshedpur, the 2021-22 ISL League Shield winners, and Mumbai City, this season’s League Shield champions, for the one direct spot in the 2023-24 Champions League group stage handed to India.
With so much at stake, Buckingham was asked if the qualifier ought to have been a two-legged affair.
“My understanding at the start of the season was that this game would be a two-legged affair — one home and one away. That seems to have changed and I’m not privy to the detail as to why that is. But I don’t have any control over that, neither do the playing group, so we get on with it. We accept that it’s a one-off match and we’ll do everything we can to make sure we put ourselves in the position to try and win that one-off match,” said Buckingham, under whom Mumbai became the first Indian team ever to win an AFC Champions League match last year when they beat Iraqi side AlQuwa Al-Jawiya in Riyadh.
