Kerala will play Maharastra on 31st May at Coimbatore in the Pre Quarter finals of Santosh Trophy 2009.
Maharasthra today scored three goals in quick succession in the second half as they defeated Meghalaya 3-0 in their cluster II match at Nehru Stadium, Coimbatore to enter into the pre quarter finals on Friday. Maharashtra will now face Kerala in the pre quarters on Sunday.
Both the teams needed a victory to enter into the pre quarters and keeping that in mind they played an aggressive game right from the start. Maharashtra had better ball possession and never allowed Meghalaya players to settle down. Though, their initial challenges went in vain as their strikers failed to get the ball past Meghalaya custodian.
Meghalaya on the other hand were off color as compared to their previous encounters and never had a clear shot at the goal.
In the half time the score card read 0-0 but the start of the second half saw Maharashtra getting together and having regular shots at the Meghalaya net. They drew the first blood in 64th minute as Paresh Shivalkar was left unmarked and his powerful shot found the far post to give Maharashtra a 1-0 lead.
Three minute later Sampat Kumar Kuttymani was seen in action as he found the back of the net to give his team a 2-0 lead. There was more left in stores for Kuttymani as two minutes later he was once again in the scheme of things and was left unmarked a chance which he utilized well to score his brace and give his team a 3-0 lead and a place in the Pre quarters.
Source: the-aiff.com
From the archive. First published on footballkerala.com on Friday 29 May 2009, restored from the site's 2012 database. Text as originally published.