March 7, 2020 would go on to be remembered as a very important day for Kerala Blasters in the years to come. It was on that day that the club’s Reserves team beat Gokulam Kerala FC in the finals of the 2019-20 Kerala Premier League (KPL), as we went on to lift the trophy for the first time in the tournament’s history. The result was surprising for many people including die-hard fans of KBFC, but it also marked a sign of things to come as the club’s youth development policy finally started receiving positive attention from all across the state.

It was in 2017 that KBFC began taking youth development seriously, as we appointed Thangboi Singto, C Shameel and Renjith TA to oversee the development of our Reserves’ team and youth teams. Under them, the club started fielding strong sides in the I-League 2nd Division and various youth teams and regional competitions. We have also succeeded in developing some excellent youngsters like Sahal Abdul Samad (currently plays for KBFC senior team and the Indian football team), Mohammad Rakip and others.The future also looks bright for Kerala Blasters as we have since elevated our focus on youth development to a much higher level. While most of the other Indian Super League (ISL) sides are keen on having more established names on their books, we are looking at young promising talents.

The club recently published a list of seven Reserves’ team players who have been promoted to the pre-season squad ahead of the 2020-21 season. The list includes Muheet Shabir, Gotimayum Muktasana, Ayush Adhikari, Nongdamba Naorem, Shaiborlang Kharpan, Kenstar Kharshong and Naorem Mahesh. Among them, Shabir, Muktasana and Kharpan have been with the club’s Reserves team over the past few years, Naorem and Adhikari spent last season on loan with Mohun Bagan and Indian Arrows respectively. Mahesh and Kharshong were signed for KBFC’s Reserves team last season, but their deals were made permanent earlier this year.

KBFC also named a total of 19 confirmed first-team players ahead of the upcoming season, and two of the biggest names – Sahal and Arjun Jayaraj – are stars who have risen through the ranks at the club. In addition, the Yellow army also secured the signings of Prabsukhan Gill, Nishu Kumar, Rohit Kumar, Puitea, Givson Singh, Ritwik Das, and so on along with handing out long-term contracts to Jeakson Singh, Rahul KP and Prasanth K – making no secret of our long-term plans under the new head coach Kibu Vicuna and sporting director Karolis Skinkys.

In an interview with Manjappada – a fan group of the club in April – Coach made it clear that he is keen to build a team for the long-term at the Kerala Blasters. He also revealed that players like Rahul KP, Sahal, Jeakson, and Nishu and so on will have an important role to play in the next few years, thereby highlighting his plans for our club’s future.The Indian Super League (ISL) began in 2014, and in the first three years, Our club announced themselves really well in the top competition, reaching the finals twice during this period. But the club has since gone on a transitional phase, depending mainly on our foreign players to deliver results. This particular tactic has backfired more often than not, with the side not finishing in the top-four in any of the past three seasons.

With the ISL all set to include the ‘3+1 foreigners’ rule from the 2021-22 season, it is high time that all clubs reduce their dependence on overseas names. By including a whole lot of up and coming youngsters in their rosters this season, we have already made a step in the right direction. Working with youngsters is a tricky process – sometimes it may not guarantee immediate results. However, it remains undoubtful that with time, KBFC are likely to develop as a major force in the ISL, if we succeed in moulding these young players and making them strong enough to play in the top competition.

Being a fan of Kerala football is not easy. That is because it has been such a rollercoaster ride. I only have few fleeting memories of the stalwart players like I M Vijayan and Joe Paul Ancheri when the Kerala players were dominating the national stage. However, I know them from my father, who still says a story of bumping into the above two in a tea stall at Kolkata. And I M Vijayan talking to my father and friends about the injury he got in previous game. From there we went to Viva Kerala and Chirag Kerala being the only topflight club representing the state in the national league. I still remember waiting for the next day’s newspaper to find the result of the match in a small column. Then when they shut down operations, I must make a confession that I stopped following Indian football until Kerala blasters came. They revived the football interest in Kerala for that am always grateful.

I always wanted my club Kerala blasters to give chances to local lads. But now not only they are giving a chance, but they are building a spine of Kerala lads, who will be the building blocks for this new young team. Sahal, Rahul, Hakku all signing new long-term deals with the club. Prashant after signing a new deal and Arjun who is back from a long injury still contracted to the club.

Sahal what more to say about this lad. He has Indian football at his feet. The throne of best Indian player will be vacant in near future. And Sahal will have himself to blame if he is not sitting in that. This is the season; it is time to deliver the goods and take over.Rahul whisper it slowly this kid is going places. I have watched from his young age being the only Keralite to play at world cup. Then his development at Indian arrows and eventually at blasters. Such a versatile player. But for me though play him at RW and let him do his magic.I was admirer of Hakku from his Fateh Hyderabad days. I was very excited when he signed for blasters and then signing a new deal despite limited appearance. Defense is a tough place to break in. You must have a tough character to do so. And you can see the young defender has that. There is a question that who is next after Anas ikka? Maybe we have the answer here.

Prashant is not your dazzling footballer. But you cannot just have specialist in the squad. As a club it’s good to have certain players who can do a job in some matches. Prashant with his pace can do a job. It’s up to Kibu to utilize him. If we go by how Kibu utilized Suhair at MB, am certain he will use Prashant well. Arjun is coming back from a long injury lay off. We have seen what Arjun can do in his Gokulam Kerala FC days. For most of the games he was the best player on the pitch. I hope both him and Kibu can get him to that level again.

As am very excited about the new season, I would urge my fellow fans to be cautiously optimistic. This is a process we are starting with a very young team. They need time. And it is our duty as fans to give them that. As all the matches will be played without crowds, the fan reaction will be judged by social media stuffs. There will be up and downs, as it is a young team. Back the players, let them grow together. TRUST THE PROCESS.

The God of football, none other than Pele once said, “Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.” Analyzing the current state of Kerala Blasters in ISL season – 7, this is exactly the phase our team is going through. We had our struggles initially and the fans had to wait until the 7th match to end that struggle. And the success in the 7th game was certainly not accidental, but, the outcome of the sheer hard work Kibu and co. put in the training sessions as well as on the field during the matches. It is certainly the outcome of the lessons learned during the initial games and I would like to put it as the process of ‘unlearning’.

What surprises me (and most of the fans) is the way our chief tactician drove the transition from his favorite possession-based football to an outcome-oriented one. Any transformation phase is painful and so is ours. We began the league with an ambitious transformation process that took its own ugly face as we fans became increasingly impatient as the game progressed. I wouldn’t blame the KBFC fans for their displeasure as we had seen enough in the past seasons.

That’s where we saw the adaptability of our tactician as he took a crazy game shift from the core DNA of his philosophy. He realized the possession-based game need to be structured a bit more aggressively and there we witnessed the high pressing, counter-attacking, and the convergence of possession and long pass games. It even changed the basic nature of our players’ approach towards the game and we finally started seeing the positive outcome. It doesn’t come naturally to any coach to transform his core philosophy and to me, it looks like a challenging ask, if not a herculean task.

So, that’s where we stand today. However, I would like to take a slight deviation here and go back to the history of club football. As we fans are being highly impatient without a trophy in the past 6 years of ISL history, it would be interesting to see where our global counterparts stand. Do you know that one of your favorite Premier League club Manchester United had to wait for 41 long years to grab their first title between 1911 to 1952. And if you do not want to take this into consideration as it was in the early years of professional football, let me tell you that they went another 26 years without winning the league between 1967 and 1993.

Crazy right? Yes, that is the harsh realities of football that the fans have to undergo with. It doesn’t mean that the fans need to be patient enough and be happy with the club’s performance. While United’s millennial and Generation Z fans had a dream journey, the previous generations had an extremely struggling and dismaying phase. As Gary Neville rightly mentioned “It [Manchester United] had 26 years, where there was an angry crowd. You see this crowd here today, by the way, that’s not this crowd I grew up within the 1970s and 80s.”
This reminds me of the words of our evergreen romantic poet Changampuzha Krishna Pillai – “ഇതിനൊക്കെ പ്രതികാരം ചെയ്യാതടങ്ങുമോ പ്രതിതരെ നിങ്ങൾ തൻ പിന്മുറക്കാർ “. And the rest is history for Manchester United.

Hence, fans will certainly show their displeasure and I strongly believe that it will only do good for the club’s journey. As we see in social media platforms that the fans taking stands to position one as ‘true fan’ and others as ‘betrayers’. To be honest, I do not believe in this discrimination. We are ONE KBFC family, period! As Cristiano Ronaldo said, “Your love makes me strong, your hate makes me unstoppable!”. So, fair criticism will only help our players to push their boundaries and deliver the unexpected. But let us always be fair and be positive even in our criticism.

We are a football-loving state, we are football crazy people, football is in our blood and will continue to remain so. 6 years is not a long stretch in football. Success will certainly come but let us be patient. In the words of Pablo Neruda – “You can cut all the flowers, but you cannot keep Spring from coming.”

വസന്തം വരിക തന്നെ ചെയ്യും! നമുക്ക് കാത്തിരിക്കാം. ഇന്നല്ലെങ്കിൽ നാളെ മഞ്ഞയിൽ ആറാടി വരുന്ന ആ വസന്ത സ്വപ്നങ്ങളെ താലോലിക്കാം!