India vs Hong Kong: Kerala fans rejoice after victory in Kochi in rare victory for Indian football

A new city, a new challenge. When I was assigned to cover a match in Kochi, the main agenda – the 2027 AFC Asian Cup qualifier between India and Hong Kong – was clear.

However, the secondary aspect of exploring the city was something I was unsure about.

Friends who had been to Kochi had suggested Fort Kochi, Lulu Mall and seaside seafood as options. But first I took a tour of the stadium and realized this was something I hadn’t seen before.

Food stalls and market complexes, be it biryani shops or hair salons, were all part of the stadium. Adjacent to the site, people trained, ran and had social gatherings. It felt like someone tore a page out of RK Lakshman’s comics and turned it into stadium paraphernalia.

Although the complex looked busy compared to other locations, it gave the feeling that the giant concrete structure was a neighborhood park, maintaining a sense of community in which football plays a major role.

Local boys Ashique Kuruniyan and Bijoy Varghese not only played as Indian players that night; they played like two sons of the soil within earshot. Chants of their names echoed through the homes, where younger generations listened, imagined and believed.

But nothing surpassed what was happening in the cauldron.

More than 22,000 fans thronged the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, unfurling tifos and banging drums as India exorcised its Kochi hoodoo with a 2-1 win.

Around the half hour mark, Lallianzuala Chhangte went down after a foul. The chants that followed for the next few minutes were: “Come on, Chhangte!” Things rose again for Ryan Williams. Then another, and another.

The highlight, however, was a phenomenon I had heard about before.

“When fans rejoice, the JLN trembles,” a friend from Kochi had once told me. Within four minutes of the match, after Williams found the net, it dawned on me that he wasn’t joking.

The decibel level spiked, the players celebrated, the fans jumped and the concrete shook under the weight of the joy. You no longer watched or heard a football match. You felt it too, in real time, in your veins.

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The rhythm returned in waves, with ‘the Poznan’ in the middle of each half, loud drum beats and cheers after the second goal, and as a sea of ​​flickering phone flashlights illuminated dim stands in the final quarter.

When I got back to the hotel after the match, I realized I hadn’t ticked any of the recommendations given to me. But I had stumbled upon something much rarer: experiencing the beautiful game in God’s own country, and that was enough.

Published on April 2, 2026