The artificial turf of the Vivekananda Yuva Bharati Krirangan might have drawn flak many a times, but Atletico de Kolkata's Botswana mideo Ofentse Nato today lauded the turf.
"Looking at the football in India and the infrastructe, the stadium does not have any world class facilities but it has a very good pitch," Nato told reporters.
Nato also spoke highly of their coach Antonio Lopez Habas with whom he was associated earlier as well.
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"I have played under him. He's a very good coach. You will see this in the performance of the team."
ATK's Indian goalkeeper Subhasish Roy Chowdhury said they had a lot of understanding in the team.
"We are lucky to have players like (Luis) Garcia. There's a lot to learn from them, from passing skills to their playing attitude, the positivity in them. There's no scope for any negativity."
ATK'lost their practice match here to Pinky Roy's XI but Subhasish pointed out that they had won five and drew one during their month-long training in Spain.
"We played seven practice matches, won five, drew one and lost one. We will try to rectify our mistakes from the loss. Hopefully, we will not have any problem in the days to come."
On ISL's success, he said: "ISL is yet to start. But I can say that Indian football will develop with ISL."
The 10-week tournament across eight venues in home-away leg basis will demand a lot of travelling something Subhasish was concerned about.
"Everybody has to remain fit. We will play in three four days gap, we will have little time to recover.