NorthEast United FC were denied maximum points in their 2016 Hero Indian Super League encounter against Atlético de Kolkata at the Rabindra Sarobar Stadium in Kolkata on Thursday evening. Nicolas Velez opened the scoring in the fifth minute but Iain Hume’s leveller late on robbed the Highlanders of full three points.Speaking to the media at the post-match press conference, NorthEast head coach Nelo Vingada said the Highlanders will, however, take solace from the fact that they were still alive in the league with 11 points from 10 games. “We should have won today. Our team was better than Kolkata. However, we will still take one point. My players are very disappointed with the goal and I don’t want to comment if the goal was correct or not as I could not see clearly.”He added: “Sometimes it can be difficult even for the referee and I regret the game finished this way and we should have finished the game before as [Emiliano] Alfaro had two good chances and the referee had a good performance...So the most important thing is that NorthEast are still alive. We can play and beat any team. There is no doubt about that and the best thing we can take from here is that NorthEast are coming back and I am very happy with the performance of the players and I still believe that we have a chance.”Alfaro had two great opportunities of putting the game beyond Kolkata’s reach with the score still 1-0 in their favour. However, the Uruguayan failed to put the game to bed on both occasions allowing Kolkata to level late on. Commenting on his side’s inability to kill the game off, the 63-year-old said: “Looking at the last two games, first against Goa, we should have finished the game in the first half and today also during the second half Alfaro got two chances. Kolkata were controlling the ball but not dominating and our team was nearer to scoring the second goal and the consequence of not scoring the goal is the draw. Of course I regret the way we missed. The players made a mistake which we cannot correct now.”The draw now sees NorthEast’s winless run extend to six games, including four losses sandwiched between their 1-1 draws against Delhi Dynamos FC and Kolkata. When asked if the lack of victories will have any psychological effect on his side during the closing stages of the league stage, Vingada said: “Today even though we drew it is a great step for my players and in the last game we missed many chances and were not lucky and the way we conceded the goal against Mumbai was not normal, and today even though we missed a chance to win I still look at it in a positive way. The way we played and fought against Kolkata was great and Kolkata missed many chances against Delhi and Mumbai and today they got only one chance and they scored. Looking at today’s performance and the way we played in Delhi and Pune, we can say that we play anywhere, so I believe if we can play this way we can score the goals and you know better than me that last year Chennaiyin were almost out but played well in the last four games. Even Goa [bottom of the table] can play well and qualify.”The Portuguese also believes that 20 will be the magic number as far as semi-final qualification is concerned this season. “I think 20 is enough to qualify and as of now nobody is out or in, and we have eleven points now and by winning the next game we can climb in the table,” Vingada said.NorthEast now host FC Pune City on November 22.
