Important win for team's morale: Alfaro

After thumping ATK 4-1 in front of their home crowd in Kolkata on Sunday, FC Pune City's star forward Emiliano Alfaro said the victory was important to lift the spirit of the team after losing their opening match to Delhi Dynamos.

"The Match against Kolkata was challenging but winning an away game or rather winning a game was really important for the team's morale," said the Uruguayan striker on Monday.

"We can take a lot of confidence from this win in order to make sure we remain consistent through the season."

The Ranko Popovic coached side roped in an array of quality attacking players (which boasts names such as Marcelinho — golden boot winner of last season, Indian stars in Baljit Sahani and Kean Lewis, re-signed star performer Jonatan Lucca and Alfaro himself), making them arguably the best attacking line-up on paper in the Indian Super league and the one-sided victory against the defending champions on Sunday somewhat justifies it. But the Uruguayan international begs to differ.

"No, I don't think so (that we have the best attacking team).Because there are many good players in the league, there are many strong teams. You can't just say Pune can beat this team easy. Of course we have quality players like Marcelo and Lucca. But at the end of the day, we have to perform on the pitch. We haven't done well in the competition in the past. So it is important we keep performing well till we reach the Final and then only we can make those claims," said the former NorthEast forward.

Scoring two goals in two consecutive matches, Alfaro said that playing under managers with same philosophy in ISL helped him settle quickly with his new club.

"Nelo Vingada (coach of NorthEast last year) and Popovic have a similar way of looking at football, they have same style. They both like to play to win, doesn't like to allow space at the back. Of course the teams were different but that somewhere helped me to understand the football here," he explained.

Pune City will gear up for the Maharashtra derby as they take on Mumbai City FC on Wednesday. Alfaro said they won their last game as a team and wish to continue doing the same against Mumbai.

"Yesterday the team showed a great character and as our coach said it was a brilliant team work. For now, we have more games to come and need to concentrate on our next game against Mumbai. I like to look at one game at a time, so we will be prepared as a unit and play for all three points against them," he concluded.