Robert Jarni motivated to take NorthEast United one step further, keen to play attacking football

The new tactician met the media with his coaching staff and a couple of Indian players.

New NorthEast United FC head coach Robert Jarni and his staff comprising of assistant coach Sasa Glavas and Head of Academy Khalid Jamil were present in front of the media at an event in Guwahati earlier today, ahead of the new season.

The technical staff was also accompanied by two players from NEUFC: Redeem Tlang, who scored that memorable goal against Bengaluru FC in the semi-final last season and defender Rakesh Pradhan.

Jarni started off the session with an interaction round. “This is a challenge, a big challenge for me, but thank you to all the staff of NorthEast United, especially Khalid for the support. Thank you so much,” he began.

“We will try to give our best. We will work together and we’ll need your support from the first match to the last match,” Jamil followed up.

Tlang labelled the new season as a new challenge for the entire group, while Pradhan revealed how excited he was to play for his home state.

On being asked whether he spoke to fellow Croatian and Indian national team coach Igor Stimac, the Highlanders' new tactician revealed that he had in fact, enquired with his compatriot about Indian football. “This is my first time here, so yes, we were in touch. He told me many things, many good things.”

“I like offensive football”, Jarni clearly prioritized that his focus for the season was first and foremost to get his group to play an attractive brand of football. “That’s how it is with Sasa and me and we will try and explain this to the players. The ball must go very fast and we love to control and make the ball work.”

“We will take it step by step,” answered Jamil when asked about his role as Head of Academy which is a completely new venture for NEUFC. “We are looking for youth development. There will be U-13 team, U-15 team, U-18 team and a reserve team.

We have just started the process. We have to select the right players from a pool of 1500 candidates. We are taking our work very seriously. Our aim would be to smoothen the transition for local players from reserve team to the senior team.”

The Croatian head coach of the Highlanders then revealed that following the pre-season camp in Guwahati, his team would leave for Dubai to prepare and return by October. “Last year NorthEast played the playoffs and narrowly missed the final, but I hope this season we go all the way to the final and we need proper pre-season preparation to achieve that goal.”

The tactician was asked what his plans were to accommodate the foreign players, along with the Indian ones who have already begun training. “This won’t be a problem. We hope the players arrive in good shape and we are especially focusing on the tour in Dubai to work on the players and help them get in tune.”

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Tlang was asked about his experience last season where he turned a lot of heads with his performances. “Last season was the best one in my career so far. I hope this season is even better. I’ll work harder and give my best.”

The final question was thrown at Jarni, where he was quizzed about whether retaining the core team of Indian players along with Federico Gallego who was a star last season was an advantage. “This team is very young. I’ve said it before, but I want to change momentum here. This is the hard work, this is very difficult. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s not, but I think we have many players who want to do very well.“