Football is one of the popular sports in the state.
KERALA BLASTERS
The first Indian professional football club FC Kochin was from Kerala.Kerala Blasters Football Club is an Indian professional football club based in Kochi, Kerala. The Blasters compete in the Indian Super League, one of the top leagues of Indian football. The club was established on 24 May 2014 and began their first professional season a few months later in October 2014. The team name comes from one of their owners, former Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar, who was known as the "Master Blaster" during his playing days. The club's current majority stake holder is Sachin Tendulkar. Minority owners of the club include film stars Chiranjeevi and Akkineni Nagarjuna, as well as film producer Allu Aravind and industrialist Nimmagadda Prasad. The Blasters play their matches at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. The team has lead the league in attendance every season, regularly averaging over 55,000 fans a game.
The Blasters played their inaugural match on 13 October 2014, losing 1�0 to NorthEast United. The club made it to the final of the Indian Super League in 2014. A last minute winner from Mohammed Rafique saw Kerala Blasters be defeated 1�0 by Atl�tico de Kolkata. Despite not qualifying for the finals the next season, the Blasters managed to make it to the final again in 2016. The team was once again defeated by Atl�tico de Kolkata, this time through penalties 4�3.The Manjappada Fan Group are the most active and biggest fan group for the Kerala Blasters and the Indian Super League overall. The group was founded in 2014 when the Blasters was formed themselves with the purpose of having all the fans of the Kerala Blasters under one umbrella. Before every match, the group reaches the stadium early to setup tifos, banners, and balloons.
Overall, the Kerala Blasters are known in the ISL for their fanatical supporters, known together as the "Yellow Army". Averaging over 55,000 fans a game, the Blasters have held the title highest average attendance in the league every season that they have played.[3] According to a local cab driver "when there is a match [in Kochi], there is traffic jam all over in the city. In fact, you can't go on the street where the stadium is. The stretch from the team hotel to the stadium (about 5km) is completely packed with fans. In a car it might even take you two hours to get through it. In Kerala, the people support football tirelessly. It doesn't matter if the team wins or loses, they are always there in high numbers. I've played at places like Kolkata, where if the team loses two-three matches on the spin, the numbers in the stadium diminish. There is nothing like that in Kerala," said former India international Pappachen Pradeep on the football fans in Kerala. The Kerala Blasters have developed a rivalry with fellow southern team, Chennaiyin. Former Chennaiyin head coach Marco Materazzi was sent off when both clubs faced each other during the 2014 finals. The former Italy international was then given a one-match suspension in 2016 when he was involved in a scuffle between a Chennaiyin and a Kerala Blasters player. This incident lead to the return leg in Kochi featuring Kerala Blasters fans wearing masks of Zinedine Zidane and thus intensified the overall rivalry between the clubs.
LIONEL MESSI
CRISTIANO RONALDO
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