Kerala crowned Santosh Trophy Champions; beat West Bengal 5-4 on penalties

Kerala were crowned the champions of the Santosh Trophy for the seventh time after beating West Bengal 5-4 in a penalty shootout in the final at the Manjeri Payyanad Stadium. The regulation time ended with both teams level at 1-1, thanks to successful headers from Dilip Orawan and Bibin Ajayan.

Kerala lifted the title for the seventh occasion after Sajal Bag shot his penalty over the crossbar. This is Kerala's first trophy win on home soil since the year 1993.

The match started with West Bengal on the attack right from the start as Fardin Molla first got a long cross inside the box before setting up Tanmay Ghosh for a header all by himself within the first five minutes of the match. They, however, failed to take both the opportunities even as the Kerala defenders looked a bit shaky.

Kerala soon created a chance for themselves, but Jijo Joseph hit a long ranger straight into the hands of the Bengal goalkeeper after a beautiful run from Shigil on a counterattack.

The first half continued with both the sides eager to press forward, but the 32-time champions were clearly more successful having enjoyed better possession and creating more dangerous chances. The first 45 minutes, however, ended with both teams taking 7 shots each with Kerala hitting 4 of them on target compared to Bengal's two.

The action post the break, on the other hand, started on a slow note with both teams happy to bide their time. The first real chance of the second half came in the 59th minute of the contest when Jijo Joseph received the ball inside the box after a defensive blunder from Bengal. But the Kerala mid-fielder seemed to have panicked a bit and shot it well wide of the goal post.

The defensive unit from both sides seemed to have grown more and more comfortable as the game progressed. From a bunch of errors early in the game, the defenders from both teams reduced the margin of error for the playmakers and strikers in the second half. This made the miss from Joseph even more noteworthy, with that being the only glaring defensive blunder in the final 45 minutes.

Kerala did come close to breaching the Bengal defence in the additional time but the shot went over the crossbar, forcing the match into the mandatory 30 minutes extra time.

Kerala started the extra time on the charge, putting the Bengal defence under pressure but it's the latter who broke through in the 97th minute. A lousy back pass in the left flank by Kerala was wonderfully intercepted by Supriya Pandit before finding Dilip Orawn, who headed it into perfection to give Bengal the lead.

It looked like the 75th Santosh Trophy is done and dusted at this point with a pin-drop silence in the crowd, but Kerala refused to budge. Noufal, out of nowhere, came up with a stunning cross from the right flank to find Bibin Ajayan, who headed it to the back of the net with ease to equalise and send the match into a penalty shootout.