Kochi: Sometimes a wholehearted performance is never enough to save the day. It has happened with Kerala Blasters on their first home game of the season, suffering a painful 1-0 defeat to former champions Atletico Kolkata, at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium here on Wednesday.
The deflected strike from Javier Lara in the 53rd minute dashed Kerala's hope of resurgence from a sterile season opener in Guwahati. Despite their significant improvement in attack, the hosts could not break down a robust Kolkata defence.
With marquee star Aaron Hughes over with Northern Ireland for international duty, Blasters were started hamstrung at the back although their forwards did look a threat although perhaps could have made better choices in the final third.
ATK, who also looked quite positive, silenced the home support after the break when Javier Lara's low drive took a wicked deflection off Jhingan to fly into the net.
Blasters responded with some attacking substitutions. In the dying moments Jhingan glanced a header narrowly wide and Belfort thought he had won a penalty in injury time, but was booked instead for a dive.
