Roy Krishna: the best year of his career

Roy Krishna is considered as one of the best players Fiji ever produced – by some fans the best of them all – and his 2019 proves much of his quality. He turned into the all-time top goalscorer of the Wellington Phoenix, earned the Johnny Warren medal and signed a millionaire contract with the Indian Super League side ATK, just to mention some of his achievements.

Krishna made a magnificent season for the Wellington Phoenix – guiding them back to the playoffs of Hyundai A-League. The Fijian scored 19 goals in the 2018/19 season for the Phoenix, being 13 in the 2019 year – also providing four assists in the year for the New Zealand side. The Fijian Flyer was the top goalscorer of the Hyundai A-League and earned the award given to the best player of the season, the Johnny Warren Medal.

After the end of the 2018/19 season, Krishna received many offers from various club around Asia and even from the A-League. He decided to take his time to choose the next step of his career – while he represented Fiji at the Pacific Games held in Samoa.

Roy scored six goals for the Bula Boys in the competition in five games played, earning the bronze medal after beating Papua New Guinea at penalty shootout in the 3rd/4th place playoff match. The goals scored by Krishna for his national team give him the impressive record of 29 goals scored in 41 international matches played – he is just three goals away from the legend Esala Masi, who is the top goalscorer of Fiji national team with 32. Krishna also scored in a 1-0 win of Fiji against Mauritius in a friendly match on March 24th.

Krishna also had the honour to be the flag bearer of Fiji in the opening ceremony of the Pacific Games. Something that is a great achievement for any athlete when it comes to represent your country internationaly.

After earning the bronze medal in the Men’s Football contest as captain of his team, Krishna decided which would be his new club for the 2019/20 season. Roy, that comes from Indian heritage, wrote an emotional text in his social media as he decided to move to where his ancestors come from: he opted to move to ATK in the most important football league of India, earning around 1M USD in his new contract to represent the club from Kolkata. He came to India as the 3rd most valuable player in the league and with a superstar status to guide ATK back to an ISL title, that would be their third in the history.

His start in India could not be better: in ten games Krishna scored eight goals to keep him at the first place in the golden boot ladder of Indian Super League. Krishna also provided one assist in the run so far. ATK finished 2019 in the 2nd position in the table, just three points away Goa the first-placed team in the standings.

The 2019 of Roy Krishna was magnificent: he scored a total of 29 goals and provided 5 assists – counting his games with Wellington Phoenix, ATK and the Fiji national team. The stats prove it was the best year of the now 32-year old striker, but the milestones achieved to turn into Wellington Phoenix all-time top goalscorer (51 goals in total), the bronze medal and to be Fiji flag bearer in Pacific Games, to be awarded the best player of 2018/19 A-League season and to sign a very profitable contract in Indian Super League show the level that the boy from Macuata reached in his career.