ISL
ISL 2022-23: 3 new foreigners who have impressed in this season so far
We pick out top new foreign recruits who have come to the Indian Super League and impressed in the opening weeks.
Ivan Kalyuhznyi (Source: Manorama Online)
Week 2 of Hero Indian Super League has come to an end, with some surprises and some upsets. Everyone had their opinions about the new foreign recruits before the commencement of the season. Some have lived up to the expectations while some failed to do so.
We take a look at the three best-performing foreign debutants of ISL season 9 so far.
Dimitrios Petratos
The 29-year-old wrote his name in the history books of the Indian Super League in golden letters last Sunday after becoming the first Australian to score a hat trick in the Hero ISL. Despite the result of ATK Mohun Bagan's first game against Chennaiyin FC, Dimitri managed to get a passing accuracy of 91%.
The midfielder also created one big chance and registered one assist to his name. Petratos fired up even more and stunned the crowd in the game against Kerala Blasters netting the ball thrice and assisting once. He was an endless menace in the Kerala Blasters box completely doing justice to his role in the game.
Ivan Kalyuzhnyi
Ivan Kalyuzhnyi is the first Ukrainian to represent an Indian club in the top tier football. In the Kerala Blasters side who have a cemented midfield line, Ivan Kalyuzhnyi getting a starting 11 role was doubtful. As expected, he started from the bench for the first game.
He came off the bench in the 80th minute and shook the net twice in under ten minutes which earned him a starting 11 spot in the second game. He was deployed as a second striker in the game against ATK Mohun Bagan and he broke the deadlock as early as the 6th minute.
Kwame Karikari
A proper super sub - that is what Kwame Karikari is. Chennaiyin FC struggled to find the back of the net in the previous edition of ISL and Kwame was expected to be a solution for their goal-scoring woes. Kwame is a centre forward who can also play on the wings.
In the first game against ATK Mohun Bagan, Kwame came off the bench in the 57th minute and it only took him 3 minutes to find the back of the net and balance the scales. Rahim Ali scored the winning goal, but the ball came off Karikari's boots. Even though he couldn't do anything to win the game for Chennaiyin FC in the game against Bengaluru FC, he came close to scoring twice in the 20 minutes he played.
