Gurpreet Sandhu on practicing penalties with Sunil Chhetri, frank talks and team outings that scripted Bengaluru FC’s comeback

“When I look back at the season, I don’t think we were too bad even when the results weren’t bad. I believed in myself that I was doing the right thing and I had to transmit that belief in the players,” says manager Simon Grayson.

The players did buy into his ideas. And one who has stood tall during this season is goalkeeper Gurpreet Singh Sandhu, who has made the most number of saves this season in the ISL and has the joint second-highest clean sheets. It was Sandhu’s strong show between the posts, where he made numerous saves including stopping two penalties: one in normal time and one in tie-breaker, which took his team to the final.

In an interview with The Indian Express, the India goalkeeper talks about how practicing penalties with Chhetri has made him a better stopper and opens up on the frank conversations within the team, which scripted the remarkable turnaround. Excerpts from an interview:

After such an intense semifinal, how long did the hangover last?

Sleep deprived, yes. But no hangover. That could be the case for people watching the match but the win was not a surprise for me.

Even when it went to penalties?

Yes, because I knew I just needed to save one. I knew I would at least get a shot at one. There were many good penalties throughout the shootout. And I got really close to some of them. I got a hand at three of the attempts but they were too far out. However, as long as we were scoring, I knew I would save one.

Do you follow a process or technique during penalties?

We train almost every single day – me and Chhetri bhai. It’s an art for Chhetri bhai, to keep scoring whenever the chance comes. He wants to keep reinventing his technique. For me, when you have him shooting penalties makes my life difficult. I have to face that challenge and stay tough. That’s how I get it. I also get the mentality of a top-notch striker. What they are thinking, what they are thinking, what’s their approach like.

What do you mean by approach?

If a player like, for example, Greg (Stewart of Mumbai City), he’s going to take a pen and he is coming slowly in his run-up, it’s most likely — guys like Greg, Bart Ogbeche, Sunil Chhetri — all these guys will look at the keeper and wait for the keeper to go one side and slot it on the other side. So that’s the most difficult part for any striker to do and a goalkeeper to judge. At that moment, when you are in the goal, you need to stay on your feet for as long as possible and make them decide where to hit rather than you deciding for them. So that’s what I was trying to do at that moment.

That must take a lot of time and practice to perfect… the idea of staying still till the last moment.

Of course. Also the height helps. There’s no denying it. Not everyone can try it. Everyone has certain limitations, I have mine. But my height helps me to reach further than anyone else.

You extended your contract with Bengaluru at a time when results were not going strong. What kept you at the club?

The trust part is important. The second part is to know how well the club is run, what are the people like in the club. And that’s been A-1 since Day 1 (at Bengaluru). So there have been no complaints. For me, at the point I was in my career the options were very less and there were few places that I could pick. For me, to stay at BFC and trust the process, win championships – I think it’s possible – and I love the city, love the fans… so no complaints for me.

When the club wasn’t winning, what was the mindset? What triggered the turnaround this season?

In training, we could see everyday that we have the quality. We felt like it’s just a matter of time that things will change. We decided to keep things simple. We were trying too hard in the first half of the season, trying things we were not good at.

For example, trying to play out from the back, build attacks. That’s good, of course. But is it effective for the team? Is it compulsory or necessary for us to do it from minute one or should we first get a grip of the game, get comfortable and then do it. That’s the shift that happened during the season. Maybe we need to be respectful to other teams and their tactics, get a grip of the game and then do things the way we want to.

So how did that reflect on the field, in terms of tactics?

From the Durand Cup, we were trying three at the back, or five at the back as you say. We tried to change that during the ISL, tried something else but it didn’t work out for us. So we went back to three in the back where players were a bit more comfortable. Defensively, we were fine. Even when we were down. Defensively, we were among the least to concede goals. But we weren’t scoring enough goals. So that was something as a team we looked at and wanted to rectify. The message was to take our chances. We can’t have the most beautiful amount of passes, have an amazing through ball but not score goals. Maybe sometimes you need to shoot from 15-20 yards out, take your chances, make the goalkeeper and defenders work. We were trying too hard to score a perfect goal and we forgot that in a football match, you need to take chances even if the chances are bleak. That shift happened. You had Roy Krishna shooting, you had Rohit going in for crosses. You had Prabir and Roshan crossing from those positions. They were not waiting for someone’s run to come and put in a beautiful ball. The message was to do it regardless of you having 100 per cent conviction. Because football is a game of faults. Someone will make a mistake and it’ll help you.

How tough is it to have these frank conversations when things aren’t looking up, when the team isn’t winning?

It is tough but the kind of personnel we have – open minded and welcoming – the staff we have, it helps. As a player, if you want to talk about something, give your advice, it has been welcomed. It’s not an ego thing. It’s about helping the team out. So that’s what has helped us.

Off the field, what did you guys do to keep your spirits up, to keep the atmosphere light and get back to winning ways.

We didn’t keep it light. We kept it very strong on the pitch, especially. We were going in everyday, training hard, if you had to smash people, you smash people. Off the field, we keep it light. We’ve tried to go out, watch Premier League games and blow off steam. In fact, during one of those dinners, we had discussed about a turnaround in our campaign. We were confident. And it has happened.