Dempo SC CEO Pradhyum Reddy expressed relief and pride after the Golden Eagles clinched the final qualifying spot for the I-League. While ecstatic about the victory, Reddy readily acknowledged the challenging journey.
“It’s a fantastic feeling now that we’ve achieved this result. There were a lot of nerves and you could see that in the first half. Going into the halftime one-nil down, I think Sangramjit making that save settled us, two-nil down would have been tough.”
“I think once we got the first goal, the momentum was always gonna be with us.”
Pradhyum was especially appreciative of the home support that is a staple of their outings at Ella.
“Fantastic crowd support, you see it everywhere in the world, if there’s ever a day when you need a crowd, it was today. One-nil down at halftime and they didn’t give up, the encouragement from the likes of Jimmy and everyone else, I think that was fantastic, and we got the first goal and the second, and the crowd lifted the players and I think that’s how we got the third.”
Reddy acknowledged the pressure on the Golden Eagles and expectation of performance. “Everyone expects Dempo SC easily to win it and qualify. It wasn’t so easy and we learnt our lessons from last year.”
He continued “If you think about where we were last year, technically getting relegated from the second division to third,it was a tough fight. If you look at our group (in the third division), we had Kickstart FC, we had Rangdajied United, both second division worthy teams, the way they played. The play-off rounds were three teams, and again it’s fine margins, lose by
one goal to Sporting Clube de Goa and it changes from being first place to not having a chance to qualify. So I think that format is a bit of a lottery.”
Speaking about the journey through the second division league, he said “The longer season, second division, we were the favorites, everyone tagged us so in a home and away situation. But three weeks ago we were in fifth place and then at halfway through where we were in second place and everything changed.”
Reddy also acknowledged the luck of the draw working in their favour in conjunction with their own efforts. “The way this league is; we were fortunate that after the Sporting Clube de Goa game we put everything in our destiny. We rode our luck this season, and that’s the league, but to come up in the big moments and convert;It’s not a one-year journey, it’s happened over two years, and we deserve to be in the I-league.”