2023-09-20 21:48:18
Thursday Sep 21, 2023 Kerala Blasters team training in Kochi to face Bengaluru A-FC in ISL Football /Photo: Sunoj Nenan Mathew
He reached the tenth season of playing in Kochi. The dreams and hopes of Kerala Blasters are yet to be fulfilled. They believe that there will be a change in the 10th season. Bengaluru FC will be on the opposite side when the new season of ISL kicks off tonight at 8 pm in Kochi. Last season, it was Bengaluru who blocked Blasters’ way in the playoffs. That game didn’t end the way I like to remember it. The preparations were not so good. During the match once morest Bengaluru, coach Ivan Vukomanovic has been banned for calling the players off the field. He will return only following four games. Associate coach Frank Dayuwen is in temporary charge. Performance in the Durand Cup was poor. He did not shine in the warm-up matches in the UAE. Sahal Abdul Samad, Prabhsukhan Singh Gill, Ivan Kaliushni and others left the team. KP Rahul and Bryce Miranda, who are brilliant young players, are in the Asian Games. Many of the players never fully recovered their athletic ability. Ishan Pandita and Sourav Mandal have just recovered from injuries. Dimitrios Diamantakos also joined the team recently. Of the 29 members of the team, 11 are freshmen. On the other hand, there are many changes in the Bengaluru team coached by Simon Grison. Udanta Singh, Sandesh Jinkan, Roy Krishna and Prabir Das left the team. Sunil Chhetri and Rohit Dhanu are not with the team as they are in the Asian Games team. Last season, Bengaluru beat Blasters on Chhetri’s free kick goal. Vuko and the players walked out protesting this goal. Bengaluru’s energy is midfielder Javier Hernandez. Goal keeper Gurpreet Singh Sandhu is the spearhead. Jezel Carneiro, who was the captain of Blasters, is now with Bengaluru. Adrian Luna is the captain. The Uruguayan was the energy of the team last season. Forward Diamantakos of Greece is another key player. There are six foreign players including both of them. Marko Leskovic and Milos Drincic are in defence. Japan’s Daisuke Sakai and Ghana’s Kwami Pepra are the new arrivals. The Malayalis in the team are Rahul, Sachin Suresh, Nihal Nidhish, Vibin Mohanan, Mohammad Azhar and Mohammad Ayman. Blasters reckon that the arrival of Pritam Kotal will be beneficial in defence. Prabir Das will speed up the game. Not sure if Ishan Pandita will play. The main achievement of Blasters in the last nine years of history is reaching the final three times. Last season they reached the playoffs as fifth place. Bengaluru became champions once. Runner up last season. They lost to Mohun Bagan in the final. Read on deshabhimani.com
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