ISL 2018-19: 7 foreigners who have flopped this season
The first half of Indian Super League season 5 is over, as all the teams have played half of their league matches. A total of 53 matches have been played so far with 139 goals being scored.
From this year, the marquee foreign signing have been withdrawn, which made clubs looking for young and talented players rather than old ones who almost finished their career.
Thanks to excellent scouting, all the eight clubs have signed reputed foreigners. The only exception was ATK, who signed all foreigners who have proved themselves in the ISL already.
As half of the tournament is already over, we now need to assess the foreigners and their performances in the previous matches.
As it seems, most of the clubs have made one or two odd signings, which was not successful as expected. Kerala Blasters and FC Pune City are struggling more than others as both them relied on foreign signings.
This year, the Indian players significantly upped their performance, which sometimes made the foreigners toil. Some of them even had to warm the bench to give a chance to Indian counterparts.
Here in this article, we would look at the seven foreign signings which have been flopped this season:
#7 Andrija Kaludjerovic (Delhi Dynamos)
The Serbian striker came from Slovenian club Olimpija Ljubljana but hadn’t played a match for them. Rather, he was more use popular in his stint with Wellington Phoneix that play in A-League. He scored nine goals from 23 matches for Phoenix.
However, India had made life tough for him as the Serbian has struggled from the opening match. Delhi were hoping to make a turnaround of their fortunes in this edition but have failed to do so far, mainly due to the inability of the strikers.
Delhi have signed many talented players in different positions but the attacking responsibility was largely depended on Kaludjerovic. But apart from the goal against Kerala Blasters’ which ensured his side a point, the Serbian striker has failed to find the back of the net.
Kaludjerovic has played all the 10 matches for his team so far but lately, he fell out of favour of coach Josep Gombau, who under immense pressure decided to give other players a chance.
It’s heard that Delhi will release the Serbian in the next month.