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The ISL clubs flew all over the world on their pre-season tours as they prepared for another season which promises a lot of excitement and goals. As teams aimed to strike the perfect balance between fitness and combination, here's a rundown of the top scorers from each of the ten sides who are ready to take the season by storm and have announced their readiness for a longer season of the ISL. The list features legends as well as the young guns who are raring to showcase their talent.
Robbie Keane, ATK
The defending champions showed intent when they went out to buy the all-time record Irish scorer Robbie Keane. He has scored 126 Premier League goals for six different clubs and at 37, showed no signs of slowing down when he topped the goal scoring charts for ATK in the Pre-Season, scoring in 4 of their five games, including a brace against Dubai All Stars, to take his pre-season tally to 5. However, and Achilles injury has ruled the Irishman out of the first few weeks of the league.
Sunil Chhetri, Bengaluru FC
India's most-capped player and all-time top goalscorer with 55 goals in 96 appearances, Sunil Chhetri would be raring to go for his first season in the ISL for Bengaluru FC, after a rather disappointing season with Mumbai City FC in ISL 2016, where he failed to score in 6 starts for the Islanders.
He opened the scoring for Bengaluru in pre-season against UCAM Murcia CF, scoring a brace, and went on to add three more against Gokulam FC and Chennai City FC, whom they played twice, which meant that he also ended the Pre-Season with 5 goals to his name.
Jeje Lalpekhlua, Chennaiyin FC
ISL's all time Indian top scorer with 13 goals, Jeje Lalpekhlua kicked-off the pre-season scoring the opening goal for Chennaiyin in a 2-1 defeat to Thai Port and adding another in the 3-0 thumping of Bangkok United. He is tied on two goals with Baoringdao Bodo who scored a brace in a 2-2 draw against the Stallions. The duo have scored 4 of Chennaiyin FC's seven goals in pre-season.
Kalu Uche, Delhi Dynamos
For a side that topped the goal scoring charts in ISL 2016 with 29 goals, being a goal scorer carried huge responsibilities. And with a new coach in Miguel Angel Portugal this year, the former FC Pune City striker Kalu Uche has shouldered the goal scoring burden netting 7 goals in the last three Pre-Season games for the Lions, thus ending up as their Top Scorer in pre-season.
Emiliano Alforo, FC Pune City
Not much is known about the Stallions' Pre-Season games as majority of them were held behind closed doors. The only match we know about is the one against the Mariners where NorthEast United's top scorer from last season, Emiliano Alfaro, scored twice to give FC Pune City a 4-1 win with Ajay Singh and Isaac Vanmalsawma adding the other two.
Manuel Lanzarote, FC Goa
The Gaurs had a campaign to forget in ISL 2016, finishing bottom of the table and with a vision to turn things around for ISL 2017/18, went on to sign ex-players from Barcelona's famous academy, La Masia. One of players from that list includes Manuel 'Manu' Lanzarote, who has scored 5 goals for the club in pre-season, which means that he was the top-scorer of the side. Interestingly, all of his 5 goals have come in FC Goa's victories.
Trindade Goncalves, Jamshedpur FC
If we were to list down a side that has enjoyed scoring goals in Pre-Season, it has to be The Men of Steel who have averaged a massive 2.42 goals/game. Three of their prolific scorers include the former Kerala Blasters winger Farukh Choudhary, the newly signed Nigerian international Izu Azuka and Ex-FC Goa midfielder Trindade Goncalves, who have each scored 3 goals.
Mark Sifneos, Kerala Blasters
The former Manchester United first team coach Rene Meulensteen has seen his side struggle for goals during Pre-Season, having scored just 4 goals in five pre-season games. All four of those were shared between 2 of their foreign strikers, Courage Pekuson & Mark Sifneos, who scored two each.
Balwant Singh, Mumbai City FC-
Mumbai City FC have always been a side that has seldom been dependent on a key player, and have had multiple players chip in with the goals. This pattern was also repeated in their pre-season this year with eight different goal scorers scoring their 12 goals. Rafa Jorde, Balwant Singh and Thiago Santos had two goals each.
Danilo Lopes, NorthEast United FC
Danilo Lopes, who was signed in place of Wellington, took no time to settle in, as the Highlanders banged in 3 goals to sit on the top of the goalscorers list. He will have the job of leading NorthEast's attack, especially after departures of the seasoned Nicolas Velez & NorthEast United's last season's top scorer, Emiliano Alfaro.
