United Victory (UV) coach Mohamed Nazeeh has stated that the team’s aim is to be included in the top six of the Dhiraagu Dhivehi Premier League table, and they are not thinking about avoiding relegation. In an interview given to PSM News after the match against New Radiant Sports Club, Nazeeh said, “We don’t want to go into a relegation battle. We’re not trying to survive by playing qualification matches,” and that UV will work to be included in the top six.
Nazeeh said that the upcoming match is one that UV must win at their level, and that it is a necessity. He also stated that they need to secure three points from that match.
“Neither I nor the players can show any nervousness in that match. It’s a match where we must take three points,” Nazeeh said. The coach also mentioned that United Victory went into the second league match against New Radiant with the sole intention of gaining a point. He said that New Radiant is a team with many national team players and has more skilled individual players. However, Nazeeh stated that coach Ali Suzain hasn’t had enough time to form them into a team yet, and UV wanted to get a point from New before they became a cohesive unit.
Nazeeh said that UV had the opportunity to get a point from New, creating good attacks and having chances to score that went to waste. He added that it was just unfortunate that they didn’t get a point. “New Radiant has excellent players from the national team, but considering all aspects, they haven’t become a team yet. There hasn’t been enough time. So we went out to tackle that directly. The aim was to get a point from New Radiant before they become a team,” Nazeeh said.
He noted that UV players worked very hard in the match against New, but fatigue was evident. He pointed out that some players became so tired that they couldn’t run, sometimes failing to defend. In the first league match between UV and New Radiant, New won with a score of 2-0.
Nazeeh said that considering the skilled players in New Radiant, UV accepts the match result. Regarding foreign players, Nazeeh stated that out of all the foreign players currently playing in the league, the four best-performing ones are with UV. “So the pressure on me increases, because we need to produce results. That’s if we have good players. Also, we’re not thinking about avoiding relegation. If the target is clear from the beginning, the players can work towards it. Considering the short time we had and everything else, we will prepare during the upcoming break to be included in the top 6 of the table,” Nazeeh said.
UV is currently ninth in the table. Having lost both matches played so far, they were defeated 4-0 by Odi in the first match.
