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When the Kerala Blasters FC team earned a hard fought draw against league leaders Atletico de Kolkata on October 26, FC Pune City was just settling into the opening minutes of their third game, a first in front if its home crowd, against FC Goa. Ninety minutes later that day Pune had moved to the fifth spot while Kerala were at the bottom of the table. And while Pune was lauded for coming back from the dead, Kerala represented the proverbial dark horse raring to find its moment of glory in the spotlight.
Perhaps not as dramatic but the game between Kerala Blasters FC and FC Pune City at the Shri Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex in Balewadi was full of half chances, tight attacking football and goals. It all began in the opening minutes of the game itself when both Tapan Maity for Pune and Nirmal Chettri for Kerala were booked thereby paving the way for an explosive game ahead.
And explosive it was. In the 15th minute of the game a fine cross from a quickly taken free kick by John Goossens saw the ball fall to the charismatic David Trezeguet. Well known for his ability to poach the ball and score goals, he made no mistake as he fired the ball past Kerala's marquee player and goalkeeper David James to open proceedings for the home team.
Pune go slack; Kerala capitalise
To say that the game was dead and buried in the first half itself would be a gross misinterpretation of Kerala's playing prowess and also terrible injustice to their playing skills. After Pune opened proceedings and the crowd added to the fervour and noise, Pune began to slacken their hold on the game. Half chances, missed passes and clumsy tackles began to increase as Kerala began to dominate possession slowly but steadily. As early as the 26th minute of the game, Kerala brought on Ishfaq Ahmed for Renedy Singh.
The slow and steady build ups eventually saw attempts that needed a string of saves from Belardi. The goal was set up by the Scot Stephen Pearson who swirled the ball in front of the Pune goal mouth. The flighted ball found Cedric Hengbart, who headed it in towards CS Sabeeth. He struck his leg out only to have the ball bounce off his hips into the goal.
The goal by Sabeeth neutralised the one goal advantage that Pune had, and it also raised some questions about the manner in which they marked the Kerala players. There were four Kerala players standing in close quarters in front of the Pune goal, with only two people marking them. The two teams went into the break with the scores level at 1-1.
David James gets tactics right for Kerala
It is to be remembered that when Pune were playing good football against FC Goa, Kerala was making Kolkata sweat it out on their own home turf. And that was the big difference between the two teams today perhaps.
While Kerala continuously kept pushing Pune and working the ball in their half, Pune were content with defending the ball and making the odd lost run into the Kerala half, a far cry from their previous game against Goa where they were not just defending the ball but also attacking Goa continuously. Ashutosh Mehta who had toiled endlessly during the team's previous three outings, ended up making errors on the right flank which proved costly eventually for the home team.
Two substitutes that changed the course of the game were those of Belardi for Pune and Adriano for Kerala. Belardi took a knock in the 50th minute trying to fend off a Kerala attack and was replaced by Arindam Bhattacharya. On the other hand Kerala replaced the Brazilian Adriano Pedro in the 61st minute and bought on Penn Orji, whose flair upfront was great. And the tempo of the game changed almost immediately. Kerala began pressing forward and there was renewed impetus in their play.
Five minutes after coming on, Orji was found unmarked when a cross from Canadian Iain Hume reached him and he made no mistake in driving the ball past Bhattacharya and sending the visitors into a celebrating spree as silence descended on Franco Colomba's men. With 25 minutes to play and a crowd in excess of 8,200, FC Pune City began to press forward. While Pune made daring runs into the Kerala half, they too countered it with attacks deep in Pune's territory.
In Pune's defence, they didn't play badly, it was just that Kerala's hunger for a win this time around was greater, considering that they had tried very hard in their previous three games and come agonizingly close on two occasions to do so.
