Sometime this ISL preseason, the Kerala Blasters released a video of their head coach Ivan Vukomanovic singing a little-known song from a short-film released half-a-decade ago. "Kadalollam sneham ullillullillund", it went, "... you don't know this one". It was yet another sign of just how much Vukomanovic had connected with the people and culture of Kerala.
Cut to late October, when the Blasters pulled off a come-from-behind win against on-paper superior side Odisha FC. The win that showcased all the self-belief and fight and sense of adventure that Vukomanovic had been saying he wanted his side to have. At the end of it, as had become routine, Vukomanovic led the players to applaud the fans. Almost all of them of were still there and, when he walked up to them, they sang, "Kadalollam sneham ullillullillund..."
It was their aashan's song. Their master's. So, they learnt it and sang it back to him.
Adding a more concise version of the video here. https://t.co/uqnSfOADsN pic.twitter.com/27HxGpiZXs
- Jared Fernandez (@Fernandezjared1) October 28, 2023
The master has left the building now, though. On Friday, after three tumultuous years at the helm, Kerala Blasters announced that they had parted ways with him. In their official statement, management had nothing but praise for their main man. We're yet to hear from Vukomanovic himself. Without that we can never be sure behind the real motives of this sudden announcement late on what had been till then a dull Friday evening.
A clue lay in club director Nikhil Nimmagadda words: it was "the right time to make the next step". Results had been poor in the second half of this season, but the circumstances (mainly injury-related) had been more than extenuating. Or perhaps they'd wanted to take this step at the end of last season, when Vukomanovic led the Blasters off the field in the middle of a playoff game in Bengaluru, but couldn't for fear of upsetting the fans?
It was a mutual decision, a club source told ESPN, and perhaps it was. Vukomanovic may have loved the Blasters but he barely hid his disregard for the league (and especially its referees) -- as that walkout proved -- so maybe he'd had enough? Perhaps something had gone wrong in the post-season review meeting, blame laid where it ought not have been?
Knowing how astute both sides in this are in terms of perception management, we may never learn the whole truth.
What we do know, though, is that it ends a bond like perhaps few others this sporting nation - and certainly the ISL - has seen. You see, to understand what the loss means to the Blasters faithful you just have to translate the lyrics of that song he loved, the song they serenaded him with: roughly translated, it goes, 'deep within me, my love for you is as vast as the ocean...'
Ivan Vukomanovic and the Kerala Blasters fandom connected instantly. He may have been appointed in the pandemic, with the league taking place in faraway Goa, but he had them playing the way they had dreamt their team would play.
The season before he'd joined, the Blasters had finished second-bottom, 10th, and had looked it in every department. In his first season, he got them to the final, while playing high-pressing football played at a breakneck pace, the men in yellow a whirlwind of perpetual motion. On the days of the semifinal, tens of thousands packed fan screenings across Kerala, the last vestiges of lockdown a distant memory.
These aren't fans returning after watching a match from a Stadium, but it's just fans returning to their homes after attending a football match Screening!
�� Kochi pic.twitter.com/J7iynDur6i
- Dhananjayan (@_DhananJayan) March 15, 2022
Days before the final, he channeled an iconic Malayalam movie character to say, "kerri vaa da makalle" [come on in, children] and inspired about ten thousand to make the trip up to Goa for the final. Literally and figuratively, Vukomanovic moved the Blasters faithful.
On his arrival at the Kochi airport next season, he was mobbed. In his first game at the Kaloor stadium, as with every match there since, cheers for him were the loudest, his appearance pre-game the most anticipated, his name on everyone's lips at the end.
What he meant to the Blasters wasn't just reflected in this intangible value of fan-love; commercially he was everything. Go through his Instagram page and you'll see him endorsing a hospital, an e-bike manufacturer and LED light makers. When this writer went to interview him at the start of that second season, the main contenders for his time were commercial partners of the club. He was the face they wanted, the face they knew the fans connected with.
Even during the huge walk-out controversy, they stood by their aashan. Kerala is no stranger to a boycott, and if it's for reasons they believe is righteous, well... He may have objectively been in the wrong, but it didn't matter, he was fighting for them and dammit they would fight for him. When the club wrote the apology the league sought, they were furious.
It's with that fury that this season had begun, but as ever Vukomanovic had found a way to channel all that energy onto the pitch. On the day of his return from the AIFF ban following his walkout, he was greeted with a massive tifo that proclaimed him King. At the half-way stage of this season, the Blasters were leading and playing some excellent football -- these pages giving his side an A and 9/10 watchability rating.
Then Adrian Luna, his on-field general, got injured and everything went wrong. They won just three out of 14 games in 2024. Vukomanovic irritated both fans and management by not taking the Super Cup seriously (costing his club a chance for maiden silverware and a spot in Asian competition). League form dipped but they'd been so good in the 2023 bit that they qualified for the playoffs for a third straight time where they outplayed Odisha for large swathes, didn't take their chances, and were dumped out. All this was done with a considerably weaker team than Vukomanovic had started the season with, a season in which he'd introduced more of the Blasters youth products into the senior team than ever before. Nowhere along the way had there been an inkling that it would come to this.
It is what it is, though. Tributes will pour in across social media as the news filters through. Anger with the club will be at a tipping point -- who they appoint to replace (easily) the most loved coach in ISL history will be crucial. For now, the Blasters faithful go into the weekend with heavy hearts and a little known song running through their minds... "Kadalollam sneham ullillullillund..."