Manolo Marquez says players deserved win against Maldives

India’s head coach Manolo Marquez was delighted after their convincing 3-0 win against Maldives in an international friendly at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, Shillong on Wednesday. This was the maiden win for the Spaniard and India’s first after a long gap of 489 days.

Rahul Bheke scored the opening goal for the Blue Tigers after a corner from Brandon Fernandes. Liston Colaco then scored the team’s second goal in the second half whereas Sunil Chhetri, who was making a comeback for the team, scored the 95th goal of his career.

“When you win a game, you are always happy. You can play well or not, but at least, after I don’t know how many games, it’s important to get a win,” Manolo Marquez said during the post-match press conference.

The Spaniard admitted the AFC Asian Cup qualifier match against Bangladesh would be challenging but they expect to win.

“We expect to win (against Bangladesh). If it’s 3-0, it’s better, but we expect to win. We know that it will be a tough game against Bangladesh. Because for me there is no easy game. There is no easy game.. I think, I feel that will be a difficult game for both, for them also,” he stated.

The gaffer said the players deserved this win as they have working hard in the training session.

“The thing is that it’s not about if it’s tough or not. The thing is that we didn’t win one game for more than one year. Everyone was speaking about this and I think that the players deserve this win. I think nobody can say that it’s not fair, our win today,” he said.

“All the goals were with the head and two of them with set pieces. And yeah, you can play better, but if you don’t play a great game and you win 3-0, it’s a good score,” he added.

India begin their AFC Asian Cup qualifying campaign on Tuesday against Bangladesh.