ISL 2021-22: Great achievement for Kerala Blasters, says coach Vukomanovic after sealing final berth

Kerala Blasters FC split honours with Jamshedpur FC on the night playing out a 1-1 draw, but rode on two top-draw defensive displays to pip the League Shield winners 2-1 on aggregate over two legs and qualify for their first final since 2016, in the 2021-22 Hero Indian Super League at the Tilak Maidan Stadium in Goa on Tuesday.

Adrian Luna (18th) opened the scoring for Kerala with a stunning goal before Pronay Halder (50th) pulled one back for the Red Miners who needed one more goal to take the game to extra time, but another solid performance by the Kerala backline ensured they held firm and confirm a place in the summit clash since their defeat to ATK FC six years back.

In the first leg, Sahal Abdul Samad scored the only goal in a 1-0 win for Kerala who made it to their third Hero ISL final. They were the finalists in the inaugural 2014 edition as well.

Also watch: ISL 2021-22, SF2 2nd leg: Rock-solid Kerala pip Jamshedpur 2-1 over two legs to book final date

KBFC head coach Ivan Vukomanovic was delighted with his team’s performance over the two legs and is looking forward to playing in front of the yellow army in the ISL final on Sunday.

“It’s been a great achievement, I think for the club, first of all, and especially for the fans who were waiting for so long to be where we are standing today. After several years of disappointment and several seasons of less good results, I’d say, we achieved something great today. And I think that we should all be happy, all the yellow family, all the people from Kerala, we all should be happy,” Ivan Vukomanovic said in a post-match press conference.

“These boys tonight, I’m so proud of them. They were fighting so well throughout the whole season. Since we started last year in August, we knew that there is potential and quality to end up top of the table. We knew that tonight we had to face one of the best teams in the league again. We knew that it would be a physical game, we knew that it would be a fight. So, we had to overcome all those things to achieve this,” he added.

The head coach further said that playing in front of crowd gives his team ‘extra power’ and confidence.

“I think that the boys will have extra motivation seeing the crowd coming in. I think that the fans have suffered a lot throughout these two seasons, especially when there were no results. But I think even more this season where we had such nice results where the fans should actually have fun, and I think that the football we are playing is for the fans, because playing in front of these empty stadiums, it does not give you not a great feeling. The feeling when you play in front of full crowds, it gives you goosebumps, it gives you extra power, it gives you extra motivation to fight for your jersey to fight for your team,” Vukomanovic said.