Sportskeeda Indian Football Awards: Top 10 managers of 2016

In the last of our Indian football awards series for this year, we look at the men on the touchline. The men who make the goalkeepers, defenders, midfielders and forwards what they are on the pitch. There have been some wonderful results for Indian teams this year, not least Bengaluru FC’s wonderful run to the finals of the AFC Cup. 

The voting by fans

We sent out a poll for fans to vote on which Indian manager had the best year, and Sportskeeda experts also weighed in on the matter. The one with the highest vote received 10 points and the one with the lowest got 1 point. The scores from Sportskeeda’s list and the Reader’s choice are then added together, with an average score being taken. In the situation of two players tied, Sportskeeda’s ranking takes preference. Here’s how our readers voted:

How the readers voted

Here are the rankings after Sportskeeda experts’ choices were also taken into consideration:

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#10 Nelo Vingada

The veteran Portuguese manager took NorthEast United as close as they had got to the knockout stages of the ISL in the three years of their existence. NorthEast played some fantastic football but just did not last the distance in a lot of games. 

The Highlanders got off to a flying start with two straight wins, as their defenders stood tall. Throughout the season, NorthEast defended really well but sometimes conceded silly goals or made individual errors to lose points. 

Regular injuries didn’t help Vingada’s cause either. At different points of the season, NorthEast lost Emiliano Alfaro, Nico Velez and Holicharan Narzary, which meant that Vingada had to dig deep into his resources. 

But not having those first-choice players eventually hurt Vingada’s and NorthEast’s cause as they fell short by a whisker after losing to Kerala on the final day of the season.