Ahead of their second home match in four days, the confidence stays high in the NorthEast United FC camp but possibly, not the stamina. The side, led by Nelo Vingada, got a 1-0 win in their maiden ISL 2016 game last Saturday and on Tuesday they go against FC Goa in Guwahati.
Marquee player Didier Zokora, who came in as a late substitute for NorthEast United FC against Kerala Blasters, is not in contention for a start even against FC Goa, Vingada mentioned.
"Didier Zokora is still not fit to start as he got a brash injury during pre-season and we will bring him back slowly," the experienced Portuguese coach said ahead of the game. Seityasen Singh is however fit enough to play in the match.
"Normally a team in Portugal or the European leagues have 72 hours as the average benchmark to play the next game. So ideally if the first game started at 7 pm, this game should start at 9 or 9:15 pm but it cannot be helped now," the 63-year-old continued. "If you talk about player recovery, it differs from player-to-player.
"A person like Holicharan Narzary who ran around 11-to-12 kilometers in the first game will naturally need a bit longer to recuperate but a player who ran less might need lesser time to be totally fit," Vingada added.
For FC Goa, injuries have given a major headache to Brazil football legend Zico, who is coaching the Indian football team for the third-straight Indian Super League season. Robin Singh, Gregory Arnolin, Subhasish Roy Chowdhury, Luciano Sobrosa and Denzil Franco either injured themselves during the warm up games or the pre-season matches.
"Unfortunately, we do not have our full squad because of some injuries, but we are already used to these things. Because of the problems that we had last year, we lost some players that we would have liked to count on," mentioned Zico.
"Some players who had come the last time were not very fit too. So we lost them. We are prepared to play now," the Brazilian said.
