Hyderabad FC registered their first away victory in the Hero Indian Super League (Hero ISL) 2019-20 with a comfortable 5-1 win over NorthEast United FC at the Indira Gandhi Athletic Stadium in Guwahati on Thursday. Despite the win, however, Hyderabad finish the season at the bottom of the table with just 10 points from 18 games.

After the match, Hyderabad’s interim head coach Javier Gurri Lopez summed up the win and said, “I didn’t expect to win 5-1. In my opinion, it was a difficult win for us. We played fantastic football, especially during the first 45 minutes. We scored two goals but after that we lost a little bit of control. We controlled the second half and scored more goals. I say it always depends on the players and the players showed today that they can make it happen."

"I knew that if we scored early it would be easy for us. But NorthEast have been playing well in the last games. Maybe they lost because we played a great game,” he added.

Youngsters Liston Colaco and Mohammed Yasir were impressive on the night with the former grabbing a brace and the latter scoring one. Pressed for an opinion on their performances, Lopez noted, “I am very proud with the work we are doing not only with Liston and Yasir but also with the other younger players. Asish Rai also played very good in the second half. Both players are fantastic and have great motivation even on the training pitch. Today, they showed they can be Indian internationals in the future.”

From the NorthEast camp, interim head coach Khalid Jamil shouldered the responsibility for the loss and said, “It was mostly my mistake. Maybe I put too much pressure on the players and the expectations were high. I cannot blame anyone but myself.”

Identifying a poor start to the match as the biggest contributor behind the result, Jamil noted, “It wasn't a difficult match because we have gotten good results against good teams as well. But against Hyderabad, we didn't start well.”

Jamil handed debuts to 16-year-old Alfred Lalruotsang and striker Dipu Mirdha in the match. Asked about his assessment about the duo, he opined, “Both need time. They need to play more matches. The more they play the better.”

Jamil signed off by saying, “Right now we are thinking about the next match rather than the next season.”

Read the Match Report here.