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On Monday evening, a new dawn embarked for FC Pune City Academy in Mumbai. The Pune outfit. managed by Mohan Dass, became the Champions of the inaugural WIFA Women’s Championship which is a FIFA-AIFF State Development Initiative to promote Women’s football in India.
FC Pune City got the better of United Poona SA in the Final after registering a comfortable 3-0 victory. After the post-match ceremony, we interviewed Pune City’s Coach Mohan Dass who spoke about the Championship, their journey, and Pune City’s star forward Senorita Nongpluh.
“First of all, Thank You to WIFA for organizing such a big tournament for girls. It is a pleasure to see all the girls play at an iconic stadium like Cooperage. Our journey started with a loss. We were very upset that we didn’t manage to get the result in our opening game. We later analyze our mistakes and came back stronger to go all the way,” Mohan said.
Bodyline SC, who was touted as the favorites to win the Championship were eliminated by FC Pune City itself in the semis. Mohan Dass recalled how FC Pune City prepared for the big clash.
“We analyzed Bodyline carefully by studying their mistakes and weakness from the previous matches. We trained according to it and got the result we wanted. I won’t say we defeated them, but we gave a good fight and in the end, it was us who prevailed,” the head coach recalled.
“While in the Final against United Poona SA, we pressed them from the first-half itself as we studied their strategy too. It helped us a lot to score three goals in the first twenty minutes,” Mohan added.
The Coach didn’t hesitate to praise 13-year old star forward Senorita Nongpluh who scored twice in the final: “She can deliver good performance week and week out. She possesses a natural talent at such a young age which is quite astonishing to see in our country. Well, you can say Indian Messi (laughs).”
