Albert Roca may have made way for his assistant Carles Cuadrat to take the helm at Bengaluru FC this season, but the new coach said the team will continue to follow the same philosophy in the upcoming season.
"I have spent a considerable amount of time with Albert across leagues and continents . The core philosophy stays the same which means the switch is not something that everyone needs time to get used to. We believe in the same kind of football. It's about possession and putting up a nice show for supporters that enjoy an attacking game," Cuadrat said.
"The most important is to keep the right mentality. It is not about winning trophies alone. We want to always reach the final stages of competitions. It is a club that has always been competitive and reaching the last stages of so many competitions. It is a question of how well you are doing in the last stages that decide whether you become a champion or not."
"Last season we had an good league phase in the ISL. We fell short (in the final), but went on to win the Super Cup. What makes the club and the supporters stronger is the desire to reach that level. The challenge is to keep staying competitive and fight for trophies. Of course, my intention is to win all the trophies we can play," he said.
On the departure of defender John Johnson, who had been with BFC for the last four years, and his replacement Albert Serran, he said, "We are trying to pick the best from the market to replace the ones who are out. We lost John Johnson, so we have to replace our defensive player. Albert Serran is a professional player with the experience of playing in a lot of countries. We believe that he can adapt to the Indian style and play competitively."
The signing of Bhutanese striker Chencho Gyeltshen has caused a lot of buzz and Cuadrat is clear about his role in the team.
"Chencho Gyeltshen is an explosive player. He is not a player for possession ball game, he is more a player to break the defense of a team and give us that goal. It is a long season, all of them will get an opportunity to do what they do for the team," the coach analysed.
The team has no AFC commitments this year as it lost to Altyn Asyr in the inter-zonal semifinal and that has made the team work extra hard on its defense.
"The game against Altyn Asyr was tough. These kind of teams are in the middle of their season and they were fit and competitive. Teams from West and Central Asia are tough. That got us trying to work on an extra line of defence, we got to experiment on that against tough opponents in Spain for our pre-season."
The team has not had the best of pre-season, neither has goalkeeper Gurpreet Singh - whose misses in the ISL final and AFC Cup resulted in tough losses for BFC. But he said it was important to look ahead and start afresh, even if it is against the same opponent against who the team lost in the final.
"It is important to let go of things in the past and start fresh. If it is Chennai we have to face, we have to do it. We just have to go and make it difficult for the other teams and play for the points," he said.
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