Buckingham’s Mumbai City FC eyes success in extended Indian football season
The HinduWhen the Indian Super League season started in 2014, the then Mohun Bagan coach Sanjoy Sen had said people troop in “like they go to a circus”. “I think a longer season is great for the league,” says Des Buckingham, the head coach of Mumbai City FC which won the league and the Championship in 2020-21. “That’s what we want, the players want and this is great from the development point of view.” He added that with a longer season, the gaps between successive seasons get shorter, which, in turn, gives his team “the benefit of having a longer season” and “more opportunities to play more games”. We’ve got ten of the starting eleven that finished that Champions League game or started at Champions League game and we’ve retained a large core of the group.” “One additional stuff we will look at is what worked last year and what we need to build on.” Buckingham has had a reputation of building teams with youngsters over a period of 18 years.