Rafi, Belfort help Kerala Blasters come from behind to beat Goa

Kerala Blasters came back through second-half goals by Mohammed Rafi (46th minute) and Kervens Belfort (84th minute) after they were trailing 1-0 at half-time to a Julio Cesar goal in the 24th minute, to record their first win over FC Goa at the Nehru Stadium in Margao on Monday. This was also their first win against Goa in the ISL since their first meeting in Kochi in Novemeber 2014, and broke a sequence of three successive defeats.

The packed midfields of both teams cancelled each other out and the first few minutes of the match produced little action of note. In the 10th minute, Belfort picked up a ball on the left of the centre-line, and started an ambitious run towards the Goa goal. He beat five players before hitting a grounded shot from outside the penalty box, which was comfortably collected by Subhasish Roy Chowdhury. Belfort would be involved in two more bright moments for Kerala in attack, first chesting a ball down from Mehtab Hossein to set up a shot from Mohammad Rafi in the 15th minute, and then meeting Josu's corner in the 19th minute, both of which went wide of the target. In the 21st minute, a Hossein free kick was punched away by Roy Chowdhury, and Mohammed Rafique tried a header off the rebound but failed to hit the target.

Kerala were made to rue those missed chances as Goa built on their first attack in the 24th minute, with Richarlyson sending in a ball around the back of the Kerala defence from the left flank, finding an unmarked Julio Cesar, who put Goa ahead.

A Hossein free-kick in the 36th minute was then tipped towards goal by Sandesh Jhingan, but Roy Chowdhury did well to tip it over the bar to preserve Goa's lead. Three minutes later, Michael Chopra tried to meet Rafique's cross from the right and appeared to have been brought down by Keenan Almeida inside the box, but his appeals for a penalty were waved away by referee CR Srikrishna.

Though Goa registered another goal-bound shot with what Jofre Gonzalez may have meant as a cross towards Robin at the far post, it was Kerala who finished the first half with a series of fluent movements in midfield, as Goa held on to the lead at the break.

Zico made a defensive change at half-time, replacing Jofre with Lucio, but the very first move of the second half yielded an equalizer for the visitors. Hossein picked the ball up in the middle and released Rafique, whose low cross was met by Rafi, with Kerala scoring the goal inside 21 seconds of the restart and before a Goan player had even touched the ball. In the 54th minute, a headed clearance from the Kerala side fell to Trindade Goncalves, who set up Cesar, but his powerful left-footed shot from distance was wide of the target.

Kerala were lucky in the 56th minute, when Josu walked into Almeida in retaliation to a previous tackle, but was only shown a yellow card for his offence. In the 63rd minute, Cesar took another shot at goal from a free kick, bisecting the gap between the two-man Kerala wall ahead of him, but Sandip Nandy effected a good save low to his left.

Roy Chowdhury was pressed into action in the 74th minute, when Josu fired his free-kick around the wall but failed to beat the Goa keeper.

In the last quarter of an hour, Zico brought on Mandar Rao Desai and Romeo Fernandes in place of Robin and Shirodkar, but a long ball from the Kerala defence in the 80th minute found Chopra, who flitted past the Goa defence, but found his left-footed strike palmed away by Roy Chowdhury. In the process of taking his shot, Chopra appeared to tear a muscle and had to be stretchered off, and was replaced by Duckens Nazon.

Three minutes later, a Gregory Arnolin header back towards Roy Chowdhury beat the keeper, but ricocheted off the post to keep the scores level.

In the 84th minute, Belfort set off on another solo run similar to the one in the first half, picking up a Josu cross near the centre-line and then taking on the Goa defence. This time he composed himself well before taking a shot and found the narrowest of gaps low down to the right of Roy Chowdhury to put Kerala ahead for the first time.