Kerala Blasters 3-1 NorthEast United: 5 Talking Points

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.