It was Kerala Blasters’ first home game after being on the road for their last five fixtures of the Hero Indian Super League (ISL). And kicking it off with a victory in front of their adoring fans at a jam-packed Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Kochi just made it a special evening.Defender Colin Falvey was elated to win their first home game and mentioned that the team have been improving in the last few games but have not got the results that they were looking for. “It was a great match and a great atmosphere. We opened up and created a lot of opportunities and it was only a matter of time before one of them was going to go in. We took advantage of our opportunities and we are happy with the win and obviously happy to win in front of our home fans. It was fun,” he said at the post-match media interaction.While ecstatic with their win and the team’s overall performance, Falvey stressed that it was important to remain focused on their next opponents. He underlined the fact that the team is staying level-headed and concentrating on their next challenge. “It is a great start - being on the road for the last few weeks, it’s our first home game here and we won today and the previous game as well. We don’t want to get too ahead of ourselves and we want to focus our attention straightaway to the next game against Delhi Dynamos which is only a few days away. With a win, we are a few positions up the table. Like we said, we played well, created opportunities and we will keep on defending because the games keep on coming,” said the Irish-born footballer.The host team’s stopper-back Sandesh Jhingan felt that it was a good day at the office today as the team won and the support was fantastic at their very first home game of the Hero Indian Super League. “The football was very good today. It was amazing! When you’re playing at home, you always hope that the fans will support the team and obviously they did and we scored as well.”‘Sandy’ also praised the team’s display when compared to their previous performances and results, and felt that the team has the potential to keep on plugging away and getting points on the table. “Overall, the team played well. And over the course of the last few games, we haven’t played too bad but we have not got the result that we wanted. It is really good to be playing home games after playing five away games and we are very happy to have won today and got the three points. Hopefully, we can continue playing good football and get the points,” said the 21-year-old who was awarded the ISL Emerging Player of the Match tonight.Jhingan also went on to add that although the team has missed the likes of Iain Hume and Michael Chopra, he feels that the players that have come in are equally important to the team. “Humey and Chopra are obviously great players to have in the team, but we have more than a couple of players that can cover up for us in that area such as (Penn) Orji and CS Sabeeth. It is definitely good to have such players in our ranks but we also have quality players to fill in,” the young man remarked.Kerala Blasters now have a couple of days off before facing Alessandro Del Piero & Co on Sunday.
