Boy oh Boy. Fans of football in Kerala, you definitely ought to hear this one out. 3 players from Kerala have been selected in the 22 member India U-14 Boys Team that departed on Sunday to participate in the AFC U-14 Boys Football Festival to be held at Hamedan City, Iran. India will play their first Match on May 17.
Image not recoveredThe three players from Kerala in the U-14 Boys Team are Hanan Javed Nellikkavil, Anis Kaithara and Rahul Saji. All three players represented Kerala in the AIFF U-14 Football Festival held recently at Jamshedpur and later on were selected for Indian team selection trials-cum-coaching camp which concluded at Goa.
Of the three, Rahul Saji is a new guy in. However, Hanan Javed Nellikkavil and Anis Kaithara have been under the eyes of the media and remained two pearls of football in the eyes of the coaches from such a young age for quite some time. Hanan and Anis were in the Under 13 Indian National Team for the AFC Under-13 Football Festival held in Iran in May 2009. Hanan is an accomplished forward while Anis is a talented defender. And as the player is growing in stature by the day, Hanan now controls the ball for the Indian team in the midfield and plays as a shadow striker.
Hanan donned the captain's arm-band and played as a midfielder for the Kerala team in January when the Kerala Under - 14 played at the National Football Festival in January. Anis has been the Kerala Under - 13 player of the year. Both the boys, Hanan and Anis from Malapuram district are the products of Sports & Education Promotion Trust (SEPT), Calicut. Hanan was the captain and the top scorer of the SEPT Team that toured Sweden and Finland while Anis gave a solid performance in the Malaysian tour which earned them the national team call up way back in 2009.
Let's see a solid showing from all three young talents from Kerala and let the laurels for Kerala footballers keep growing in number. Best of Luck fellas from all of us here in footballkerala.com, and let's see the sun shine in the light of these sublime footballing geniuses on the football field.
India U-14 Boys:
Goalkeepers Supratim Bhattacharjee (West Bengal), Agyapal Singh (Punjab)
Defenders: Mohd.Sajid Dhot (Punjab), Myron Sezie Mendes (Goa), Rahul Saji (Kerala), Anis Kaithara (Kerala), Yogesh Kumar (Delhi) N Bidyanand Singh (Manipur), Nitin Jayal (Uttarakhand), Maibam Jimmy Singh (Assam)
Midfielders Aurochit Patnaik (Maharashtra), Enester Malngiang (Assam), Sidharth Mukhi (Jharkhand), Manraj Singh (Punjab), Germanpreet Singh (Punjab), Hanan Javed Nellikkavil (Kerala), Harmanjot Singh (Punjab), Avilash Mukhi (Jharkhand)
Strikers Alen Deory (Assam), Uttam Rai (Kolkata), Prokash Majumdar (Karnataka), Vikrant Bhatti (Uttar Pradesh)
Officials Jude Tiofilo Barreto (Head Coach), Ng Bitian Singh (Assistant Coach), Vijayan Inian Lenin (Physio)
Gopal Sea writes for FootballKerala.com
Photo Courtesy: The Week
From the archive. First published on footballkerala.com on Sunday 16 May 2010, restored from the site's 2012 database. Text as originally published.
Comments · 2
moment of joy.
When i read the headers in my rss feed, i could guess Hanan and Anis. This Rahul Chap is a surprise. Any details of his position and sorts?
Hope the boys have a good outing.
Why don't VIVA kerala sign them with a good long term deal.They can play in U-19 I-league!