'Shahinlal was amazing against Rovers', says Othallo Tabia

As Blackburn Rovers became the first English Premier League club to play in the Indian soil as they took on I-League's Pune FC, three Malayalis were fortunate enough to rub their shoulders with some of the biggest names in world football. Defenders Anas Edathodika, Othallo Tabia and goalkeeper Shainlal Meloly were the Kerala footballers who found their names i nthe starting line up of the 'Red Lizards'.

In a match were the final score was of the least priority, Anas Edathodika turned out to be the villain dismissed after seeing two yellows, while Shahinlal, the custodian who was in the team only because of an injury to first choice Subrata Paul, became the hero of the night. And Othallo Tabia witnessed all the happenings on the field at close proximity, putting up a solid display for PFC throughout the game which they lost 3-0.

"Our boys had a pretty good time out there against Blackburn Rovers. Our intention was to enjoy the match and I think we did it," Othallo spoke to FootballKerala.com after the match. The player was disappointed with the defeat, but was sure that there were a lot of positives that can be drawn from the match.

Pune FC were down to ten man 15 minutes in to the game, a second booking to Anas Edathodika who fouled Argentine Mauro Formica, doing the damage. "The red affected our performance, but you can't really blame Anas for it," Othallo said on the man from Malappuram.

Meanwhile it was Shahinlal who stole the show as he produced saves after saves to deny Rovers, only three shots went past him out of the thirty odd shots on goal by Blackburn. "He was 'amazing' today and I am happy that he got the chance to show his talent against such a big club", the Pune FC man told us.

Blackburn Rovers' manager Steve Kean was also full of praise for Shahinlal who hails Image not recoveredfrom Kozhikode and joined the team from Viva Kerala Fc in the summer as PFC's second choice goal keeper. “Not only the amount of saves, but different types of saves. I thought his reactions were fantastic and even on one occasion it was almost like a triple save. He saved it, blocked and again made a save. He has a bright future and we’ll certainly keep an eye on him,” Kean was quoted as saying.

However, Othallo feels that the match is now behind and whole of the team is focussed on putting up a good show in the upcoming season of the I-League. We wish him and his team best of luck!

From the archive. First published on footballkerala.com on Saturday 8 October 2011, restored from the site's 2012 database. Text as originally published.