NorthEast United FC have endured a brilliant start to Hero Indian Super League 2018-19 (Hero ISL), picking up 11 points from a possible 15. Under head coach Eelco Schattorie, the Highlanders look like one of the most organised teams in the league and have emerged as one of the frontrunners to qualify for the play-offs.

Ahead of Friday’s encounter against Mumbai City FC, indiansuperleague.com conducted an exclusive interview with Keegan Pereira to talk about his footballing journey and his time with NorthEast United. Here are the excerpts:

Take us through your footballing journey.

So when I was small, being a Mumbaikar I was into cricket before, like I used to go to Achrekar’s academy in Dadar but then I lived in a colony where there’s only football and you know a lot of people who are passionate about football so I used to just go to the ground and watch people play and slowly I tried and I started playing football and I started my journey with the Mahindra under 19’s and then from there I got picked up to the senior team and then it went on and on.

What are your personal goals for this season?

So, a personal goal right now is to come to the top four and to win it, win the Hero ISL but we’re taking every match as it comes and as a team, we’re just going to keep our head down and try to work hard for it.

What was the feeling like to win the Hero ISL with ATK?

When you win something there’s always a great feeling, it’s always something that you really look forward to and you achieve it at the end of the thing so it’s really nice to win the league, it’s really exciting and we’re going to try and do it with NorthEast United FC also so we’ll try our level best to do it.

Thoughts on the season so far.

Right now, the atmosphere is good in the camp, we’re winning and we’re unbeaten also at the moment, so we are just going to going to try and keep it that way, we’re going to keep our heads down, we’re going to work hard and just take every match as it comes as I said.

Thoughts on Eelco Schattorie and his coaching style.

So he has his own philosophy about his coaching style and all and what he asks the players to do, we are doing that exactly what he is asking so we’re just going to go according to his plan and whatever he says and if he thinks it’s right, we’re going to follow that and do whatever it takes to win the league.