“Incredibly lucky to feature against top clubs,” says Kerala Blasters youngster Bijoy Varghese after playing in the Next Gen Cup

Recently Kerala Blasters and Bengaluru FC participated at the Next Gen Cup against Premier League club’s youth teams. Although they lost it was mostly a learning curve for the youngsters of both the Indian Super League outfits. Kerala Blasters centre back Bijoy Varghese who recently featured in the Next Gen Cup shared how ISL will touch greater heights with better infrastructure and facilities.

The youngster from Kerala played against the youth teams of Tottenham and Crystal Palace and played a pivotal role in defence where both matches ended in tough losses for the South Indian club.

“I was very happy when I came to know about this opportunity because I consider myself incredibly lucky to have a chance to feature against the big clubs,” said Varghese.

The results did not go their way but Bijoy feels that the experiences will be majorly important to shape up the careers of young players like him going forward. “The team and myself have gained massively in match experience by playing against them. The technique, touch, and overall quality was amazing,” he added.

Bijoy has shown great potential and was rightfully promoted to the first team last season. He even played five matches under Ivan Vukomanovic and impressed everyone and was rightfully given a contract extension.

Speaking about his journey, the 22-year-old credited his football frenzy family for becoming a footballer and finally taking it up professionally. “The reason I got into football is because of my family. I have three older brothers who are footballers. My parents and myself believed that they would make it as they are really talented.”

“My life has completely transformed with all this hard work. The harder I work, the further I’ve gone. My family has sacrificed a lot for the happiness we have at the moment,” he revealed.

It will be a very important second season for Ivan Vukomanovic at Kerala Blasters and especially after a superb first season where they lost the finals on penalties against Hyderabad FC. There have been plenty of changes in the team and there looks like a greta chance for Bijoy to cement a place in the starting eleven. With foreigners around it will be tough but Vukomanovic will look to integrate him in defence and use that extra foreigner slot elsewhere bringing more balance to the team.