NorthEast United’s two-match winning run came to a grinding halt as they were undone 1-0 against Mumbai City FC at the latter’s home ground. The visitors would have considered themselves unlucky having missed a host of chances in a match that they should have won.
NorthEast United Coach, Nelo Vingada though said they will leave Mumbai with their heads held high, “Today was a very intense game because it was our third game in six days. To be honest, I was expecting a much more difficult match. We lost three points but it was just one mistake but we won many things which will be important in the future.”
Also read: ISL 2016: Mumbai City FC 1-0 NorthEast United - 5 talking points
Despite being the away side, Nelo’s men dominated proceedings and pegged the home side back for large parts of the match. This performance will bode well for a side that didn’t qualify for the play-offs last season.
Players will make mistakes
Speaking about full-back Reagan Singh’s petulant tackle which gifted Mumbai the winning penalty, Nelo said,”It happens in football. The players are not robots and they make mistakes like I do sometimes. Yes, it was an easy situation and the players must clear the ball from the area as soon as possible. But I will leave Mumbai more optimistic than I was before.”
Asked if his side were the better team on the day, “We had the better opportunities and more chances to score. To be honest, I think we were better. But that is not important because, in the end, the result was 1-0 to Mumbai. So I congratulate them. Football is about results.”
The likes of Katsumi and Alfaro missed a couple of goal scoring chances. The former especially had two golden opportunities to put his side in the lead. Nelo compared his side’s missed chances to Barcelona’s performance earlier in the season.
“Look, usually a team that creates three-four goal scoring chances must score at least one. But I saw a Spanish game recently in which Barcelona lost to Alaves. They missed 10 chances in that match with the likes of Neymar, Suarez and Messi.”
Forlan is a great player
The visitors managed to keep Mumbai’s main man, Diego Forlan quiet for large parts of the match. The coach though wasn’t surprised with his side’s efficient defending, “Forlan is a great player. I shook his hand at half-time too. Of course, today he is not the same player he was 10 years ago. But yes he can help the young players in his team. I cannot make any more comments about players from the other team.” he concluded.
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