Portugal happy with the win, Grant slams players for slow gameplay

The Delhi franchise is now tied on points with the Highlanders at the bottom of the league.

Delhi Dynamos FC went level on points with NorthEast United FC in the Hero Indian Super League (ISL) 2017-18 table after beating them 1-0 at the Indira Gandhi Athletic Stadium in Guwahati on Wednesday. It was the Lions’ third win of the campaign and their head coach Miguel Portugal was happy after the game.

“We played our idea of football, our philosophy of football. For me, I am very happy with the win because my team played very well and won. Previously we had played well but lost matches because the team had some little problems, but not today,” he told reporters at the post-match press conference.

When commenting on how important the win was for Delhi, the Spaniard said: “It is very important because firstly, we need to keep winning to leave the last position. Secondly, because we always want to win. I like to win and it’s great for us as a team. The win is a motivation for the team to go ahead and win more.”

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Portugal also insisted that the future of Indian football looks bright. “I really like the Indian players, the young players. I watched the FIFA U-17 World Cup held in India and saw 3-4 good players. In my team also, there are 2-3 young players like Vinit Rai and Lallianzuala Chhangte. I think Indian football has a good future because they have very young talented players. They now need preparation, experience and fitness. Their future is very good in India,” he said. 

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Meanwhile, NorthEast head coach Avram Grant failed to hide his disappointment. “I think this game was not a class game from us. We did not play very good. Rather both the sides did not play that well. We played very slow and our last pass lacked quality. And then we lost Marcinho (to injury)... It was not a quality game from us but even then we controlled many parts of the game. We came very near to scoring but our finish was not right.”

While elaborating on Marcinho’s injury, Grant added: “It’s not looking good. It seems to be a bad injury. At least we could have got a penalty for that (foul on him) but we need to wait and see. It’s, however, not looking good.”