Best foot forward

May 03, 2012 |

Kochi

Tags:

KERALA-SANTHOSH-TROPHY.jpg.crop_display.jpg

Veteran keeper Joby Joseph will lead Kerala in the 66th Santhosh Trophy Football Championship to be held in Odisha from May 11 to 27.

The 22-member squad, with eight new faces and former international M. M. Jacob as coach, was announced in Kochi on Thursday.

Kerala is drawn in the second of the seven cluster pre-quarter league alongside Tripura and Himachal Pradesh.

If the State finishes on top of the group, it will come up against title contenders Punjab and defending champions West Bengal.

Thirty-five players shortlisted from the state senior championship held in Thiruvananthapuram were being prepared for the premier tourney from April 10 at the FACT Ground. The final squad will take off on May 7 to play their opener against Tripura on May 11.

The sponsors Musli Power Extra has announced a Rs 2 lakh cash award if the team qualifies to the final and Rs 1 lakh for appearing in the semi-finals. If the team wins the tourney, the sponsor also promised Rs 1 lakh for each goal scored.

Kerala has won the championship five times and appeared in the final on 12 occasions. The last victory came in 2004 when striker Sylvester Ignatius netted the golden goal against a much fancied Punjab in New Delhi.

“It has been a long wait and we are aware that unlike earlier times, most other states prepare quite heavily for the championship, which means we need to be at our best to triumph this year,” said Jacob, who is assisted by P. K. Rajeev.

The eight fresh legs in the squad are defenders B.K. Anag, Mohammed Marsook and Askar C.V., midfielders Vineeth Antony and Saleel K., strikers Nasarudheen and Arun K.J. and goalkeeper Naseeb P.K. Kerala Football Association executive member C. Davood is the manager of the Kerala team.

There are four players in the squad who played for Viva Kerala in the I-League, such as Surjith V. V., Mohammed Marsook, Rahul P. and Shibinlal.

“Our strength is the traditional attacking game and there are few good midfielders who can hold the ball and deliver the long balls. Kannan and Usman are our main strikers and we will be relying a lot on them,” said Jacob.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/148665" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-40e98d86ba49b643bf0ee41d890c9dcf" value="form-40e98d86ba49b643bf0ee41d890c9dcf" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="80964113" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>