Kerala came from a goal down to beat West Bengal 5-4 on penalties and clinch their seventh Santosh Trophy title in at the Manjeri Payyanad football stadium in Malappuram on Monday.
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Kerala came from a goal down to beat West Bengal 5-4 on penalties and clinch their seventh Santosh Trophy title in front of their own supporters at the Manjeri Payyanad football stadium in Malappuram on Monday, May 2. Kerala team finished the competition undefeated and displayed a very dominant and possession based playing style to lift the 75th National Football Championship trophy for the first time on home turf since 1993. The mastermind behind Kerala’s success is 45-year-old head coach Bino George. The former Gokulam Kerala FC and now Kerala United FC boss has done a phenomenal job to assemble a young team of semi-professional and professional footballers and go all the way up to the podium.
— Kerala Football Association (@keralafa) May 2, 2022
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Kerala started its campaign with a thumping 5-0 win against Rajasthan. Captain Jijo Joseph opened the scoring with a brilliant free-kick before going on to complete his hat-trick, while Nijo Gilbert and Ajay Alex also got on the score-sheet. It was pretty clear after the first match that Kerala is playing possession based football with a lot of emphasis on off-the-ball movements and short-passing. Bino George picked up players with good ball-playing skills, like Arjun Jayaraj, Muhammad Rashid, Jesin TK, Jijo Joseph and many more. The core of the team consisted of Gokulam Kerala FC and Kerala United players.
Since Bino George served as the boss of GKFC, when the club was started in 2017 he has a good knowledge about many of the local lads. Arjun, Salman and Rashid were part of the GKFC setup and played in the I-League. Rashid won the I-League title with the Malabarians in the 2020-21 season, when Bino was the team’s technical director. The former Mohammedan Sporting player-turned coach had a very clear plan about how his team would play and who all would be the core of the team. Arjun, Rashid and Jijo formed the core of the team, Arjun was the playmaker in the side, he formed the bridge between the attack and the defence while Rashid has a slightly defensive role of sitting in front of the back four and Jijo was the attacking midfielder who would often make those runs into the box and get into the holes.
After the dominant win against Rajasthan, next up was the mighty Bengal, against whom they had to wait till the 84th minute to break the deadlock through Noufal before substitute Jesin doubled the lead and sealed the win in the injury time. Kerala’s only draw of the campaign was to Meghalaya. The team from the North-East put up a fighting performance to share the spoils. The hosts often struggled to cope with their quick short-passing games, and their nimble-footed players were too tricky to handle. However goals from Muhammad Safnad and Muhammad Shaheef earned a point for Kerala. Bino George’s side finished the group stage with a 2-1 win against Punjab courtesy of a brace from Jijo and went through to the semifinals as the group-winners.
In the final four against Karnataka, substitute Jesin broke Kerala record for most goals scored in a single match in the competition and became the new football sensation. The 22-year-old, who was picked up by Bino George from Nilambur, came into the field in the 30th minute in place of Viknesh M and scored five goals to lead his side to a whopping 7-3 victory and book a place in the final. But in the title-decider, the pressure seemed to have gotten into the players and they struggled to find a way through a well organised Bengal defence. Arjun was neutralised for most part of the game while Jijo struggled to find space and when he did, wasn’t clinical enough in front of goal. Bengal surprisingly broke the deadlock in the 97th minute through Dilip Orawn’s diving header. Just when the home crowd was turning hostile, Bipin Ajayan’s leaping header from Noufal’s cross leveled the score took the game to penalty shootout, where all of the Kerala players converted their spot-kicks to clinch the title.
