Kerala Blasters have been the dominant team in their first two games; but the results have not quite followed. Sitting in an uncomfortable position after just one point from three matches -- and that one point came in their third match, a match they did not play particularly well in -- the Sachin Tendulkar-owned side will target their first win of the Indian Super League when they travel to FC Pune City.
The match at the Balewadi Sports Complex will be Kerala Blasters' fourth straight away game, and David James and co. will be sick of all the travelling. One more away game awaits them – against Mumbai City -- before they finally play their first home game of the season in this weird ISL scheduling, and the Kerala Blasters will look for the maximum six points from those two games.
It won't be easy, however, as Pune City are coming off their first win in the ISL, when they took advantage of home conditions to ease past FC Goa on Sunday.
That win came at the right time for Pune City, as they had just been thrashed 5-0 by Mumbai City in their previous match.
With the 2-0 victory, however, a match which saw David Trezeguet open his ISL account, Pune will head into the match high on confidence.
"The victory has brought a great feeling to our team, especially because we came back hard from a loss," Pune City striker Joaquim Abranches said. "It was a relief."
Relief has not come the way of the Kerala Blasters in terms of points, however, even if they would have been happy to finally pick up their first Indian Super League point with a hard-fought 1-1 draw at Atletico de Kolkata.
Iain Hume was on target for the Blasters in that game, and the Canadian will again be important for the team from Kerala, with Michael Chopra still put injured.
The Blasters have shown some really good skills in possession, but when it has come to finding that killer ball or assured finish, it has just got away from them. The defence has also switched off at the worst possible time, and in all three games the Kerala Blasters have conceded the first goal.
The primary focus this time will be to ensure they make the early running and take advantage of that by opening the scoring, because it is never easy when you are always chasing the game.
"Going into games, you've always got to believe that you're going to win them," said Chopra. "But football is a funny game.
"We dominated the first two games in possession and in attack, but we lost those. And comparatively, we didn't do that well in the previous game, but came away with a draw."
Where to Watch Live
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The ISL match is scheduled for a 7 pm IST (2.30 pm BST, 9.30 am ET) start with live TV coverage in India provided by a lot of channels including Star Sports 2, Star Sports HD2, Star Sports 3, Star Gold, Asianet Movies, Suvarna Channel and Jalsha Movies. Viewers can also watch the ISL match via free live streaming online on Starsports.com.
US viewers can live stream the action on FoxSoccer2go, while Europe viewers can catch the action live on Eurosport or their online Player. Middle East and North Africa viewers can watch the game on Bein Sports or via live streaming on Bein Sports Connect.
South Africa and Sub Saharan Africa audience can catch the ISL match live on SuperSport or their online option. Australia viewers can catch the match live on Fox Sports 2 or via their live video option online.
