It will be a super Sunday in Chennai during the 63rd National Football Championship for Santosh Trophyas the pre quarter finals will kick off at four different venues—Chennai, Thiruvallore, Tiruchirappalli and Coimbatore respectively.
The winner from each centre will make it to the quarter finals scheduled to be played at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, Chennai from June 2.
The prequarter final match 1 will witness Kerala locking horns with Maharashtra. Both the teams had a good run in their cluster stages and have scored convincing victories in their respective games.
If Kerala has players like N P Pradeep, Sushant Matthew, Bineesh Balan, Justin Stephen and Dhanarajan in their side, Maharashtra also has some good attack in form of Steven Dias, Paresh Shivalkar, Kuttimany and Anas Edathodika in their ranks.
Both the teams are known to play aggressive football and the match can go either’s way. Both topped their respective cluster but it was Kerala who has an upper hand as they have found the back of the net eighth times as compared to Maharashtra who scored six.
Keeping in mind their previous encounters a lot of action is expected as Maharashtra has the ability to score goals later on in quick succession.
Tircuhirappalli will witness Mizoram battling it out with Goa in the pre quarter final match 2 on Sunday.
A lot of goals are expected to be scored in this encounter as well keeping in mind both the team’s performance. Goa has a better team on paper and if they get their acts together then nothing would stop them from entering into the quarters.
Mizoram though has had a good run in their cluster but Goa will be a tough nut for them to crack. Also the other pre quarter finals will witness Railways facing Manipur at Thiruvallore while hosts Tamil Nadu will lock horns with Haryana at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium.
Source: the-aiff.com
From the archive. First published on footballkerala.com on Saturday 30 May 2009, restored from the site's 2012 database. Text as originally published.