| Kerala Blasters Vs East Bengal | |
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TIME
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MATCH:
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Kerala Blasters
V/s East Bengal
(I S L)
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DATE:
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03-02-2023
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| TIME: |
7.30 PM IST (UTC +5:30)
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STADIUM:
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Salt Lake Stadium
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| Live Tv Channel Info | |
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ADVERTISEMENT
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Lineup
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Kerala Blasters
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Kerala Blasters XI:
Not Published Yet...
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Lineup
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East Bengal
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East Bengal XI:
Not Published Yet...
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Match Facts |
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While East Bengal will be looking to pick up its first point after four consecutive losses, Kerala Blasters will be looking to consolidate its position in the top half of the current standings.
Astruggling East Bengal will be looking to pick up some points as it hosts a strong Kerala Blasters FC at the Salt Lake Stadium. While East Bengal will be looking to pick up its first point after four consecutive losses, Kerala Blasters will be looking to consolidate its position in the top half of the current standings. Blasters are on 28 points from 15 matches, and a win will help it have a four-point cushion against the other city giant ATK Mohun Bagan, which is close behind in the fourth position with 27 points.
East Bengal’s ISL play-off dreams are virtually over, as the team currently sits in the ninth spot with just 12 points in its kitty. East Bengal, which will effectively be playing for honour, is in search of its second win at home, where it will be making its eighth appearance this season. East Bengal, which was released of a transfer ban recently after clearing dues to some of its previous recruits, is now free to field new signing Jake Jervis. The English forward is likely to partner with Brazilian Cleiton Silva to spruce up the East Bengal attack.
For the Blasters, this will be the second successive opponent from the bottom half of the table. The Kerala giant last beat the bottom-placed NorthEast United FC to resume its winning form after successive losses. It will hope to continue the momentum and repeat the win (3-1) it had managed against the same opponent in the first phase.
Kerala Blasters head coach Ivan Vukomanovic had played volleyball for seven years.
Head coach Ivan Vukomanovic has given the Kerala Blasters many memorable moments in the ISL but what was his first love when it came to sport? “First, I was attracted to basketball. Because one of my neighbours was a big basketball player. He was in the national team and my idol,” revealed the Serb in a chat with Sportstar on the sidelines of the Kochi Blue Spikers’ jersey launch on Tuesday night for the upcoming Prime Volleyball League. “Our No. 1 sport should be basketball because Serbia (earlier a part of Yugoslavia), together with the United States, was a five-time World champion, Olympic Games winner and European champion.”
He had also played volleyball for seven years. “In our school system, you play all sports. And in the town where I was born, we had a women’s volleyball team which was three-time European champion. For me, it was the first feeling of being part of something important, cheering them along with some 5,000 people in the hall.”
Though Vukomanovic was good at basketball, football and volleyball, his school’s sports teacher felt he could excel in football “After eight years in primary school, you choose your game. When I was 10 or 11 years old, we were playing all sports but my teachers were telling me, ‘you are talented in football, you will go to the football section’,” he said.
“In school education, the first job of our sports teachers is to find talent. And they advise them, with their parents, to go to some clubs.. All schools have contacts with clubs. “At 17, I got a professional contract with my football club... .and there was no looking back.”
PVL, which begins on February 4 in Bengaluru and ends on March 5 in Kochi, will be the qualifying event for the World Club Championship which India will host in December. And Vukomanovic could perhaps help build bridges between Serbia (11 th in volleyball’s World rankings; India’s 68th) and Kochi to take the Blue Spikers, which is owned by the Muthoot Pappachan Group, to a higher level.
“I have a couple of good friends who played at the top level, national team and with top European clubs. Many of our top male players later became coaches in big European clubs and even in national teams,” said Vukomanovic. Serbia could also offer some valuable lessons to India in sport. “We are a small nation, a country of seven million people. And within those seven million, you have world champions in women’s volleyball, men’s volleyball, basketball, handball, water polo and tennis,” said Vukomanovic. “In basketball, for the last two years, the best player in the world’s biggest league - NBA - was a Serbian. And in the small town where I was born (Uzice), we had one of the best defenders in the history of the English Premier League football - Nemanja Vidic. And after Novak Djokovic (World No. 1), tennis has became something huge.” Chennaiyin FC last won a home game in November 2022, and is winless in its last six games. Josep Gombau — in his final season as Odisha FC head coach in 2020 — had missed the playoffs by four points.
On his return to the club two years later, the Spaniard will look to turn his fortunes around with just a few games left, as his side faces Chennaiyin FC at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium on Thursday. Odisha sits seventh in the table, five points ahead of Chennaiyin and — under the new playoff rules — has a more realistic chance to make it to the knockouts from here. “Now is the moment when it’s all or nothing in the season. We have five games to go, which means tomorrow if we win, we are in the top six,” Gombau said. “It’s true that last week we did not get the results (that we wanted), but it’s not that the team is not working hard or playing well. I see the boys with a lot of hunger and that is what we will bring to every single game.”
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