Costa Rica World Cupper Alexandre Borges, in his first season as head coach in Indian Super League 2016, is not too concerned about not having the entire squad at the beginning of the campaign.
Mumbai City FC is missing Udanta Singh and Fanai Lalchhuanmawai, due to injury. The former is a new signing, taken on loan from Bengaluru FC (BFC) and the latter, also a BFC player, has been retained by the Mumbai franchise from last season.
BFC’s progress into the AFC Cup semifinals against Malaysian club Johor Darul Tazim for a double leg fixture means the coach will also be without two other first-team players — striker Sunil Chhetri and goalkeeper Amrinder Singh.
The players will only be released after BFC's AFC Cup campaign ends. The Bengaluru-based team has its first semifinal match on September 28 and the return leg on October 19.
Borges remarked: “You have to be prepared to deal with surprises, sometimes nice and other times they are not nice. We now have 20 players with us, this is a good number to start with.”
MCFC opens its ISL 2016 campaign with an away tie on October 3 against FC Pune City in a Maharashtra derby.
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