Kochi: The opening game of the Indian Super League between the defending champions ATK and last season’s finalists Kerala Blasters ended in a dull draw with both sides playing only in patches. The away side however looked more threatening and head coach Teddy Sheringham fells that his boys could have well walked out as the winner, if it was a ‘boxing match.’
“A lot of effort put into the game. It was all about keeping the ball. I thought we did it slightly better than Kerala. The way we performed, I felt we were the better team. If it were a boxing match, we’d have won. I was satisfied with the performance, we took the game to Kerala”, said the former Manchester United legend after the match.
The Blasters which possessed a star studded squad however disappointed, with Berbatov and Iain Hume failing to produce anything productive and Sheringham was quick to praise his defenders for keeping the duo quiet for the entire match.
“We worked very hard this week to make sure that Berbatov is kept quiet. He might be a little bit older now but he has still got that quality and a small mistake from the defence could bring out the quality in him,” he said.
The Englishman was also full of praise for the young 19-year-old Hitesh Sharma, who made his debut in the ISL on Thursday. He almost scored a goal in the 13th minute and could have well sealed the win for the two-time champions and calling him a future star Teddy said, “The star of the show for me is Hitesh. I thought he was outstanding, not only attacking-wise but defensively. His positional awareness is fantastic and if he keeps up that he’s going to be some player by the time he reaches 25.”
Kerala coach Rene Meulensteen was however sceptical of his team’s performance and asked for composure and aggressive intent from his players.
“I think we should have done a little better at times on the ball – bit more composure and quality. We missed a little bit of quality in the final third to really put that final ball and the final cross to make things happen in front of the box,” said the former assistant to Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United.
Meanwhile, Ashutosh Mehra and Jayesh Rane both of whom suffered injuries during the training sessions are expected to join the team soon and may well be a part of the squad next week.