Continuing the Goal.com series on the I-League clubs, Amoy Ghoshal writes on newly promoted Viva Kerala, who will play their third ever campaign in the Indian top flight....
Viva Kerala is one of the four promoted teams in this season’s I-League and the only representative of Southern India in the country’s premier domestic competition.
They finished second in last season’s second division behind Salgaocar and now will play in their third league campaign. History is certainly not on their side as they got relegated in each of their previous two promotion seasons.
On paper they have one of the youngest and the most inexperienced squads in the league with mostly Kerala born players, who have very little top flight football experience.
The duo of Shabas Shalil and Baba Thunde, which had scored 13 goals between them in the second division campaign are no longer with the club so a lot will depend on former India U-19 internationals such as Amarwant Singh and C.S. Sabeeth.
Playmaker M.P. Sakeer and the versatile V.Surjith who were part of the 2009 Kerala Santosh Trophy squad, are also considered to be important members of the team.
There will also be doubts about the quality of the foreigners as the Ghanian duo of Reuben Senyo and Charles Dzisah will get their first taste of Indian football this season. Senyo is a striker while Dzisah is a defender, both might be talented players but Viva could have done with foreigners who have Indian football experience.
Their third foreigner- Bello Razzaq does fit that category but the Nigerian defender is said to arrive only on 21st September after solving his visa issues. That would leave the former Mahindra and Salgaocar player very little time to gel with his new teammates.
Viva also has a PIO (Player of Indian Origin) in British born Patrick Sisupalan, who is a midfielder and is very highly rated by coach AM Sreedharan.
64 year old Sreedharan has a lot of experience but will have his work cut out with a squad that has very little experience and lacks big name players.
Viva’s inability to attract stars and bring in quality foreigners is because they don’t have a proper sponsor and are funded personally by club directors and a few private groups.
Another big concern for Viva is the fact that they had the most low profile pre-season. They pulled out of the IFA Shield as they did not have any foreigners at that time and many of their players had fever.Unlike the other 13 teams; they have not played in any tournament to prepare for the I-League.
The Kerala outfit has only played one friendly match and that too against Mumbai based Akbar Travels, who are far away from the standards of the I-League. Viva won that game 3-1 but is surely short of match practice.
It’s difficult to see Viva avoid relegation considering the standard of most other teams in the league. However there are a few teams who are not that far away from Viva in terms of quality and experience which does give them a slight chance of surviving.
The team from Kerala would be counting on their home form and also hope that their key players stay injury free. If those factors work in their favour, survival will be a possibility.
But for the sake of Viva fans at least, lets not worry about the future too much and conclude by celebrating the fact that their team are the only I-League club from the whole of South India so not only Kerala but the whole of that region should support them and hope for the best possible outcome.
Amoy Ghoshal
From the archive. First published on footballkerala.com on Sunday 20 September 2009, restored from the site's 2012 database. Text as originally published.