Ahead of the Southern Derby between Chennaiyin FC and Kerala Blasters, both teams’ head coaches had addressed how goals were the missing ingredient in their early days of the Indian Super League 2026-27.

And both clubs will have to go back to the drawing board as they played out a goalless yet action-packed draw at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium here on Saturday.

Before Chennaiyin’s first home game of the season, boss Clifford Miranda had wished for its fans to outnumber the Blasters contingent by a ‘10-1 ratio’. While the home support may have had the numerical advantage among the 9000-plus at the venue, it was the Manjappada’s chants of “Let’s go, Blasters, let’s go” that largely echoed across the stadium.

However, the action on the pitch told a different story, with Chennaiyin showing goalscoring intent from the get-go, trying to pierce the opposition box at every opportunity.

Serbian Nikola Stojanovic seemed to be handed a free pass to be anywhere on the pitch and often drifted deep to start attacking actions, a role that was mimicked by Adrian Luna for the Blasters.

The resemblance in setup did not end there.

Both sides adopted a back three shape when in possession, leaving a lot of match to happen in the middle of the park. Blasters’ Freddy Lallawmawma and Chennaiyin’s Ayush Dev Chhetri often found themselves lunging into challenges, and it was the latter’s mistake that gave the visitor the game’s first real sight at goal.

A poor touch from the former FC Goa midfielder allowed Luna to play Mohammed Sanan into the left side of the box around the half-hour mark. But the youngster decided to be selfless in front of goal, squaring the ball only to see it cut off by the long, stretched legs of Emmanuel Imanishimwe.

That moment seemed to strike a chord of panic in the Chennaiyin camp, which produced a barrage of attacks as the evening grew dimmer. First it was Madih Talal who tested Amrinder Singh’s reflexes with a strike from the left edge of the area. Four minutes later, Irfan Yadwad found himself on the other side and let loose a stinger that Amrinder braved over the bar while Stojanovic and Brison Fernandes were inches away from scoring with their respective efforts before half-time.

With each attempt, the home side started finding its voice, and slowly the Blasters started fading away in the game. Despite the absence of Nuno Reis at the back, the Chennaiyin defence rendered KBFC’s frontline of Andre Green, Sanan and Korou Singh completely ineffective.

But all of Chennaiyin’s efforts looked like they would have been undone four minutes after the restart when Yadwad, in a brainfade moment, handled the ball inside his own box.

Luna stepped up with Blasters’ support, roaring to his right side and sent the goalkeeper that way before shooting to his left, only for the ball to hit the upright and flash safely across the face of goal.

Just like the first half, Chennaiyin then went through a moment of awakening. Talal and Chhetri sent their outside-the-box efforts wide while Amrinder’s decade-long experience was on show, when he pulled off a heroic dive to his right to deny Imanishimwe from close range in the 67th minute.

But two minutes later, the custodian could only watch as the ball struck the crossbar when Yadwad went searching for the top right corner.

But perhaps the Indian forward will rue his miss at the death more.

With one minute of regulation time left, Chennaiyin embarked on a blistering counterattack, with substitute Bryce Miranda setting up Yadwad with just the goalkeeper to beat. His courage to attempt a chip over Amrinder can be commended, but the execution was extremely poor as the Blasters goalkeeper got a hand to it before it was cleared away, much to the dismay of the home support.

The idea of sharing points was sure to bring out frustrations, and it boiled over in added time when Green and Imanishimwe got into a heated confrontation off the ball, which saw them both being shown marching orders.

The result leaves Kerala and Chennaiyin sixth and 11th in the table, respectively, after four games played.

Published on Oct 31, 2026