Kerala Blasters will showcase a special brand of football: Sachin Tendulkar
With just two weeks to go for the second edition of the Indian Super League (ISL), most franchises have finalised and conosolidated their squads. India’s cricketing demigod. Sachin Tendulkar, who co-owns Kerala Blasters is optimistic about his team’s chances this season.
The Blasters finished second last season, to eventual Champions Atletico de Kolkata. However, having scored just nine goals, questions were raised about their goal-scoring prowess. That being said, the signature of free-scoring forward Chris Dagnall from League two outfit Leyton Orient, could solve those problems.
The team had their jersey unveiling yesterday as Kerala Chief Minister Oomen Chandy graced the occassion.
An upbeat Sachin said, “We had a slow start to the last campaign and no one knew much about us in the begining, as the season went forward, we got more confident and started filling up stadiums.” He added,”We have a very talented side and we are currently high on confidence, after our training and practice games. There is no doubt why we can’t better our performances from last year and the results will show.”
Kerala are set to play their first home game at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Kochi on October 6 against North East United FC. Sachin added,”Please come out to show the love and support you showed us last season, with your support, we will continue to get better and deliver a high level of performance. We would like to thank our main sponsors the Muthoot group and we look forward to playing a special brand of football.”
Thank you, Sachin Tendulkar: Kerala Chief Minister Oomen Chandy
Chief Minister Oomen Chandy thanked Tendulkar for holding Kerala in such high regard. He said,”In behalf of the state of Kerala, we would like to thank Sachin Tendulkar for his contribution to sports. We would also like to thank him for being the goodwill ambassador for the National Games. He added, “We look forward to another exciting ISL season for the Kerala Blasters.”
Kerala Blasters are the only ISL franchise that has not ventured abroad, during pre-season training. As most team practice across Europe and Asia, Coch Peter Taylor has been training his team at the Greenfield Stadium in Thiruvananthapuram. The former England U-21 Coach said that it was his decision to stay back in India s he wanted the foreign players acclimatise themselves with the Indian weather.
The team’s foreign signing this season are Peter Ramage, Marcus Williams, Sanchez Watt, Chris Dagnall, Antonio German, Bruno Perone and Joao Coimbra.