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Northeast United Fc who began their preseason camp in Guwahati a couple of weeks back, played their first friendly game today against Guwahati Town Club. The Highlanders defeated GTC six goals to nil, to win their first preseason friendly.
Eelco Schattorie's side has cancelled their plans to go for a preseason camp to Sweeden and will look to have a preparatory camp in their base city of Guwahati. A tour of other Indian cities to play friendly games though is still on the cards.
Northeast United fielded a relatively stable starting XI in the game against Guwahati Town Club, with TP Reheneesh as the goalkeeper, Gurwinder Singh, and Pawan Kumar as the Centre Backs, Reagan Singh as the Right back and Robert as the left back. Jose Leudo the Columbian midfielder played as the defensive midfielder. Rowlin Borges, Nikhil Kadam, Rupert Nongrum and Okrah played in midfield. Former PSG striker Bartholomew Ogbeche played as the single striker up front.
The Highlanders started the scoring early into the game with the first goal coming within 8 minutes of kick off. Rowlin Borges slotted home a perfect Rupert Nongrum cut back to give the John Abhram owned franchise the lead. Rowlin's turn provided for the second goal when his ideal defence-splitting through pass found Nigerian striker Ogbeche who made no mistake to give NEUFC a two-goal lead. Nikhil Kadam's pitch-perfect corner was the source for the third goal, as Ogbeche rose high to score his second of the game. The scored board read 3-0 at halftime.
NEUFC fielded entirely different set players, with the likes of Pawan Kumar (the goalkeeper), Keegan Perreira, Simranjit Singh, Fanai, Tete Puia, Girik Khosla, Juan Mascia coming into the game.
Juan Mascia opened the scoring in the second the half when he headed home a cross from the right to make it 4-0. Girik Khosla who joined Northeast United after having a successful season with Minerva Punjab last season got his name on the scoresheet when he put the ball into the net from a low cross from the right. Puia, the youngster from Mizoram, had an impressive game as it was his darting run down the left that turned out to be the source for the sixth goal which was scored by Simranjit.
Guwahati Town Club did have one glorious chance to get one back on the counter but was denied by Pawan Kumar's super aerobic save.
Even though Northeast won the game 6-0, there is still a lot of work to do for Eelco and Arthur Papas. There were instances of pure lack of communication between players and also the strikers especially in the second half were very wasteful. Taking everything into account though it was a decent start to their season for Northeast United FC and their fans will be hoping that this season will be the season when NEUFC finally reaches the playoffs.
Northeast United's Croatian centre back duo of Mato Grgic and Mislav Komorski didn't play the friendly game as they joined the team only yesterday. Kivi Zhimomi has a hamstring injury and also didn't feature against GTC, Provat Lakhra who has a slight groin injury was also not a part of the team today. Seityasen Singh is out due to an ACL injury and might be out for most of the season.
Northeast United are also expected to finalize their final foreign signing of the season within a couple of days and sources inside the club state that it could be a big name from the world of football.
