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Kerala Blasters recorded an emphatic 3-1 victory against NorthEast United in their opening match at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, Kochi today. Playing in front of an enthusiastic home crowd, the first half ended goalless with Kerala coming close to scoring a number of times.The home team played a more attacking style, giving no space to NEUFC as the pressure kept mounting on the visitors. Things went in favour of Kerala immediately in the second half as Josu scored a screamer in the 49th minute to give the home team the lead.Rafi doubled the lead in the 68th minute with a brilliant header. The match was sealed in the 72nd minute when Sanchez Watt clinically netted pack Rehenesh TP to make it 3-0. Nicholas Velez scored the only consolation goal for NEUFC in the 82nd minute.Here are the five talking points of the game
#1 Tight Kerala Formation
Kerala played with a packed 5-3-2 formation making things really tight for NorthEast United. The visitors had to resort to a series of short passing sessions to break through the Northerners’ defense.
NEUFC played with a 4-3-1-2 position that had Hangal playing the holding midfielder and Kamara behind the two strikers.
The first half of the match saw series of attacks from the home team. The visitors, however, were very patient in their gameplay as they resisted by breaking apart the Kerala defense with a series of short passes but failed to find the killer one.
#2 NEUFC\'s defensive weaknesses
Kerala created a host of chances in the first half with the first one coming in the sixth minute of the game when Rehenesh came out of the box to clear the ball. But Rafi failed to capitalise. There were similar close chances in the 10th and then again in the 17th minute of the game.
Pressure really started mounting on NEUFC as they did not quite produce as many chances as the home team did. The first half ended in a stalemate, but the Kerala coach would have been happy to see the numerous chances his team had to exploit the visitors’ defense.
The second half saw the execution of the coach’s notes as Kerala forwards exploited the weaknesses of the NEUFC defence, particularly against throw ins and long through balls to net three quick goals. Josu scored the first goal in the 49th minute from a long throw by Rahul Bheke. Rafi, who missed the first real chance of the match then headed the second goal of the match in a similar fashion off a brilliant long throw by again by Rahul Bheke and assisted by Peter Ramage.
The third goal came off a long goal kick by Stephen Bywater. It was brilliant good cross field ball for Rafi which he headed straight in for Sanchez Watt. Clearly, the home team exploited NEUFC’s weakness for throw ins and long balls.
#3 English medicine for South American spice
Kerala defenders clearly had a plan for NEUFC forward, Argentine Nicholas Velez as he was trapped offside three times in the first half. The top scorer last year of the S League, Velez showed promising spark on the ground as he repeatedly tried attacking for NEUFC alone up front.
He seemed slow to beat the offside trap set by experienced English defensive duo of Williams and Ramage alongside Brazilian Bruno and Indian midfield duo of Vineeth and Bheke. The defense spearheaded by the Englishman formed a curved formation to neutralize the South American attack.
The forward however kept trying with his South American flavor and was ultimately rewarded with the consolation goal for NEUFC. Velez however, surely seems to be the player from NEUFC to watch out for in the coming matches.
#4 More injury woes in the ISL
Miguel Garcia walked off the pitch with seems to be a muscle injury. Injury of foreign players is now apparently an alarming issue in the ISL. It’s just the beginning of the league and we have marquee player of Atletico Kolkata flying back to Spain due to injury, marquee player of NEUFC Simeo Sabrosa sitting out with an injury, the marquee player of Kerala Blasters Carlos Marchena sitting out and now with Garcia walking out like this, the list just seems to be getting longer.
It might be a case of the weather taking a toll on the foreign players but hopefully this is the end of the line in terms of injuries and no more unfortunate incidents marr the otherwise stellar competition.
#5 Fantastic support and attendance
The last highlight of the game came from the stands as the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, Kochi saw an attendance of a massive 60,000+ and thousand others waiting out. Kerala had an amazing home record last season and enormous fan support and the same continued even this year. Amazing matches lined in Kochi ahead.
While football has always been a popular sport in Kerala, the expression of the same was physically visible in the game as all present were not just there to make up the numbers, they created an atmosphere worthy of the occasion and lit up the game by their verve. THis will hopefuly be a trend for the rest of the games in this edition of the ISL to follow.
