Kerala Blasters beat East Bengal 2-0 in the Round of 16 of Kalinga Super Cup 2025 and booked themselves a spot in the quarterfinals of the competition, where they’ll face Mohun Bagan next.
David Catala has now officially kicked off his Managerial time with the Blasters with a solid 2-0 win, knocking out the defending champions East Bengal out of the 2025 Kalinga Super Cup. The men in yellow showed great solidity in defense while the opponents only have themselves to blame, let’s take a peek at the game’s decisive moments.
The Blasters fielded an unusual lineup in a 4-4-2 setup Blasters with Danish Farooq stationed as a Striker along with Jesus Jimenez, Vibin placed as a Left Midfielder, Noah on the right and Luna as one of the pivots in the double-pivot midfield with Dusan Lagator, in his ‘first start’ in a Defensive Midfielder role since joining the club in mid-January. The Lineup also saw Hormipam playing as a Right Back with Bikash Yumnam and Milos Drincic at the Centre and Naocha as the Left Back with Sachin Suresh in goal. Sachin Suresh was spotted playing with a face mask as the custodian had suffered an injury in training.
The Defending Champions East Bengal also lined up in 4-4-2 with 6 former Blasters’ players – the striking duo of Messi Bouli and Diamantakos, Jeakson and Mahesh in the Midfield, Rakip in Defense and Gill in Goal. The other players were Celis and Vishnu in Midfield, and Chunnunga, Anwar Ali and Yuste in Defense.
The game began with a great chance for the Blasters as early as in the 2nd minute of the game when Noah latched onto a long ball by Hormipam and crossed into the box to an unmarked Jimenez, but the Spaniard unexplainably missed what would have been an easy tap-in. The Blasters looked to attack mostly through the right via Noah reminiscent of Stahre’s time in Blasters.
Celis proved to be a headache for the Blasters on the left flank as the Venezuelan kept on winning the ball in the area to set up counters. Celis would later take a shot in the 7th minute of the game, but the ball rolled out of play. Messi Bouli would also make an acrobatic effort sometime later in an attempt to break the deadlock, but his shot would also go off-target.
The Blasters had another great opportunity in the 20th minute of the game when Lagator provided a good-looking long ball to Jesus Jimenez who found himself in the box with just a single defender and goalkeeper to beat but he couldn’t convert the chance again as the Spaniard’s attempt to chip Gill in goal didn’t work out the way he planned.
Jesus Jimenez’s bad luck continued as he would be found again in the box after a great one-touch play by the men in yellow, and the Spaniard failed to make proper contact yet again. Celis took another great attempt to try to break the deadlock, but his shot sailed wide.
Anwar Ali was at the heart of East Bengal’s defense and he had single-handedly managed to keep Noah quiet for the night until the 38th minute. A long ball by Milos found Noah Sadaoui inside the box who tricked the defender into tackling him inside the box resulting in a penalty being awarded for the Blasters.
Jesus Jimenez’s poor luck seemed to come into play again as the Spaniard’s penalty was saved by Gill in goal but the penalty was called to be retaken as the linesman spotted that Gill came off his line before the kick was taken. Jesus wouldn’t miss his second chance on the Easter night as he slotted the ball past Gill to give the Blasters the lead.
EB had a great chance to equalize minutes later when PV Vishnu’s shot hit the post and the rebound fell for Messi Bouli who had an open goal in sight but the Cameroonian blasted his shot wide. EB would get a freekick in a dangerous position minutes later but nothing happened again as Celis skied the freekick. The first half thus came to a close with a 1-0 scoreline in favor of the Blasters.
The second half began and both sides made changes with the Blasters bringing Aiban in place of Hormipam and East Bengal bringing in Saul Crespo and Nishu Kumar (ex-KBFC again) in place of Jeakson and Rakip. The Blasters found the back of the net again via Jesus but the goal was ruled out as the Spaniard was deemed to be offside by the referee. The Blasters got a big blow in the 56th minute when skipper Adrian Luna had to be subbed off due to injury concerns, Freddy came in his place.
Despite the setback, the Blasters would soon solidify their lead as their Moroccan star winger Noah would unleash an outside-the-box Screamer beating Gill in Goal to double the lead. The goal marked Noah’s 14th goal in a Blasters jersey, leaving him just a goal behind breaking into the top 3 goal scorers in KBFC history.
Jimenez found the back of the net again in the 68th minute but the goal was again ruled out for offside. Blasters subbed off Jesus along with Danish in the 70th minute to bring in Peprah and Saheef, EB also made a change earlier subbing off Celis for Nandha.
David Catala got booked in his first game as the Blasters’ boss for getting out of the touchline area and like the commentators said “Welcome to Indian Football.” Anwar Ali made a great solo run but it ended up hurting no one.
Noah scored again this time from Peprah’s cross but like Jesus’s the goal was disallowed for offside. Peprah took a good shot from outside the box minutes later but the effort was stopped by Prabhsukhan in goal.
Another great opportunity arose for the Blasters when Nishu Kumar failed to clear a long ball from Milos and it fell to the lurking Noah Sadaoui who beat both Nishu and Gill but the Moroccan marksman couldn’t keep his shot low and effectively on target.
The game thus ended with the Blasters getting a 2-0 win over East Bengal and thus getting themselves a spot in the quarterfinals of the 2025 Kalinga Super Cup. David Catala would be happy with the start he got as the team capped a solid performance especially defensively with a clean sheet. David Catala also made history as the first manager in the Blasters’ history to win a knockout game. He would be looking forward to playing in the semis and hope his team continues the positive streak.
On the other hand, East Bengal has reached the end of another disappointing season and will need to reassess where they went wrong. The Blasters will face current ISL Shield & Cup Winners Mohun Bagan in the Semi-Finals of the Kalinga Super Cup on 26th April 2025.
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