Indian Football League

Match 63: HFC vs. JFC

Preview

Well, Indian Football is going through a lot. If you follow it closely, you will know that for sure. Currently, 8 teams are in hard quarantine and the last two matches of the league were postponed because of the Covid-19 outbreak in the bubble. Amidst all this, Hyderabad and Jamshedpur will take the field to be the number one team in the ongoing season. Despite such an opportunity, players in the camp might not be as hyped as they would have been in any other time. Indian Captain Sunil Chhetri has openly said that he is there for all the players and if anyone needs to talk to anyone in this dreadful situation, the captain, leader and legend of Indian football is there for help. Players from the Goa camp, specially Edu Bedia and Ivan Gonzalez have openly come to speak against their disinterest in the league. They have also said that the result doesn’t matter anymore to them. Thus, to come and play in these kinds of situations, players deserve a lot of applause.

The red miners haven’t trained for one whole week before they take on Hyderabad, one of the potential winners of this season. Thus, as they take the field tonight, one should just expect them to enjoy football – something they love the most. Results will take care of themselves. However, not a lot of fans understand that and the demand is such that you have to win every game you play. In order to do that, Greg Stewart will be the man that the team will look up to. The forward has already scored five goals this season and has assisted six times already. He is arguably the best signing of the season so far and is doing the job for Jamshedpur every single time The club has also signed Daniel Chima Chukwu, former East Bengal forward. The club will also look forward to him delivering and specially in the business end of the tournament. The Nigerian was very hyped when he signed for the red and gold brigade but failed massively. It will be interesting to see what he brings to his new club after they decided to sell Nerijus Valskis. Indian youngster Ishan Pandita is also in brilliant form and has scored in two back-to-back matches. Coach Owen Coyle has praised this boy a lot after their last game and who knows he might even get a start tonight!

Coach Owen Coyle in the pre match press conference spoke about the things that have gone behind since the last time they played. He said, “After the East Bengal match, the following day we did our recovery session together and the following day was the day off. On the day off, we had one or two high temperatures. So, with that in mind, as a club, we put ourselves into quarantine as a precaution and that meant we haven’t trained for six days”.

Speaking about Hyderabad and the match in general, the coach said, “You can see that from the qualities instilled in his team, in those players. We have to be at our very best against very good opponents. They will get our utmost respect. But they also know that Jamshedpur are a very good team and we will be doing everything in our power to win a very tough game”.

Like Greg Stuart of Jamshedpur, Bartolomew Ogbeche will be key for the Hyderabad team. He has been absolutely fantastic for the club and has scored 9 goals in the league already. He was suspended for the last match and will be back against Jamshedpur to increase his tally. He is already the leading goal scorer of the tournament and you can easily understand that as a fan, we will definitely enjoy the Greg Stuart vs. Bartolomew Ogbeche rivalry tonight. When it comes to defence, the team will be depending on India International Chinglensana Singh. He has been brilliant for the club this season and he along with Akash Mishra will be responsible to stop Jamshedpur.

HFC vs. JFC Predicted Line Ups

HFC - Laxmikant Kattimani, Asish Rai, Chinglensana Singh, Juanan, Akash Mishra, Joao Victor, Hitesh Sharma, Nikhil Poojary, Edu Garcia, Aniket Jadhav, Javier Siverio.

JFC - TP Rehenesh, Laldinliana Renthlei, Peter Hartley, Eli Sabia, Rickey Lallawmawma, Jitendra Singh, Mobashir Rahman, Seiminlen Doungel, Greg Stewart, Boris Singh, Jordan Murray.

Match Prediction -

It will be a good game for sure and the second and third boys of the table will take on each other to be the number one team. As the league might get called off because of the number of cases in the bubbles, a win for either of the teams can prove to be very crucial. As, if the league is called off, the number one ranked team will be given the trophy. So, expect both the teams to give their all in this match. Hyderabad might be a bit ahead but in these games, you never know!

Suggested Playing XI for the Match