ACL 2 playoff will not define FC Goa’s season: Ravi Puskur | Goa News
Panaji: FC Goa’s preparation for the AFC Champions League Two playoff against FK Arkadag is nothing like last season, when the Goan club famously put it across their opponents from Oman and made it to the group stage of Asian football’s second tier club competition.Unlike last season, the playoff is now away, in Turkmenistan, against a side that can lay claim to the staggering record of never having dropped a single league point in their history, since they were founded in 2023.Goa do not have the strength and muscle like last season. Things have changed, budgets reduced, goalposts moved. There are no high-profile arrivals, and the team that coach Gouramangi Singh will take to Turkmenistan will be unrecognisable from the side that won the Super Cup last season and qualified for Asian competitions.“We are, without doubt, going through a transition, where we are having to bring in lot of changes, whether it’s the coaching staff or players,” Goa CEO Ravi Puskur told TOI. “Our intention is to approach that game with the best possible chance that we have (to win and qualify). We know Arkadag are a very strong outfit, physically very good. This is a team that has won their league back-to-back for the past couple of seasons.“We don’t want to use the playoff (on August 12) as the be-all and end-all of the season. This is a game that will either allow us to go on a great journey of playing the AFC Champions League Two, like last season, or else we still have the AFC Challenge League that we can compete in. We are not seeing this one game as a season-defining moment. I think there’s a much longer season ahead that we need to focus on.”Goa will head to Turkmenistan with four foreign players and a clutch of new signings that hold promise but lack experience at the Asian level. Domestic signings are completed. Even if goalkeeper Hrithik Tiwari changes his mind and chooses to extend his contract, he will remain unavailable for the playoff since the player registration deadline has ended.It means Gouramangi will have to go to battle with whatever ammunition is available to him. For now, it’s not much, but like Puskur pointed out earlier, the club isn’t in the mood for hasty decisions or wayward spending.“We don’t want to sign players for the sake of it. We want to assess what the market is doing, because this is a very odd market in terms of how it’s functioning. Even with foreign players, there’s good quality available, but at the right moment. Perhaps this might not be the right time (to sign foreigners) because we are in the middle of the transfer window,” said Puskur.For the first time since inception in 2014, the senior team will have an all-Indian coaching staff. Never in the past has Goa gone into continental competition with just four foreign options. But, like Puskur pointed out, these are different times.“Given the turmoil and all that has happened in the last six months in (Indian) football and the time it’s taken for things to fall into place, we have not had the stability that we would normally like. Players and coaches will not be judged on one performance. We don’t want to use excuses. We’ll go out there, put our best foot forward and take lessons, if we don’t qualify. If we progress, we will rejoice,” said Puskur.
