XtraTime Web Desk – Khalid Jamil era in the NorthEast United camp is going very smoothly and the Highlanders are performing every match day and thus strengthening the fact that Indian coaches are not far behind than the foreign ones.
NorthEast United faced FC Goa on Thursday and the match was evenly poised in the initial minutes until FC Goa had the first breakthrough when Jesuraj scored his first ISL goal to give the Gaurs an early lead in the 21st minute.
The match was evenly balanced even after the goal. NorthEast got a good opportunity in the 26th minute when Brown put pressure on Dheeraj to commit a mistake but luckily for Goa, nothing happened. NorthEast looked desperate for a comeback but Gaurs didn’t gave them enough space to do it. Highlanders however won a penalty in the 41st minute and Fede Gallego put NorthEast level from the spot-kick. With that, the first half ended 1-1.
NorthEast came very close in the initial minutes of the second half. Brown’s volley just went over the bar. If placed well, Highlanders could have scored their second in the night as Dheeraj had very little to do.
After a lot of battle in the midfield, Goa finally broke the deadlock in the 80th minute when young Amarjit Singh scored the goal from a header. NorthEast didn’t wait for much long as their talisman Fede Gallego scored his second goal of the match to put them once again into level terms.
Goa got a decent chance to score their third of the night but Jorge’s long range effort hit the crossbar and Goa was denied and the match ended 2-2. With that result, Goa now has 21 points of 14 games and are 4th in the table while NorthEast has the same amount of points from same number of games but are 5th in the table because of the goal difference.