#4 The Kerala Wall
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The Kerala captain Aaron Hughes and Cedric Hengbart were majestic for the home side. Gadze was not given any room to work under, as one of the two veterans was always very close to him. While Hughes manned the back very well, Hengbart even moved forward from time to time and was one of Kerala’s chief attacking threats in the first half.
Kerala had a lot of set-pieces and most of Mehtab Hossain’s deliveries were aimed towards the big Frenchman and he did win most of the aerial duels in the opposition box. It was a pity for the Blasters that they could not get to the second ball as quickly as they would have liked.
It was not just Hughes and Hengbart though; Sandhesh Jhingan was majestic on the right flank. Kean Lewis was anonymous all game. The young Indian winger who has made such a big impression this season was not found for a lack of trying, but Jhingan was too strong for him.
But probably the defensive performance of the match from Kerala’s perspective came from Didier Kadio. He came into the game in the 30th minute when Josu was having a nightmare and was very close to being sent off. It was an unnatural position for the Ivorian to come into on such a big occasion but he stuck to his guns.
It would have been easy for Kadio to get overawed and sink under the pressure of playing against Marcelinho in the kind of form that he has been. But the big Ivorian did not let anything faze him as the current Golden Boot holder did not have a sniff to threaten Nandy’s goal.
