Blunders that pushed U-16 out

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One of the lessons sports offers other than the sweetness of victory and the bitterness of defeat is resilience. This is what the Under-16 Kerala football team was in their last match against Pondicherry held at Hosur in Tamil Nadu in the South Zone Sub Junior Football Tournament on Tuesday.

Kerala returned emphatically in their last match scoring 26 goals against and ill-fated Pondicherry team. Kerala had lost to Tamil Nadu (2-0) and Karnataka (1-0) in the group stages and were out of the tournament.

However, their third and last match was something special as even goal keeper Thomson Davis, who was playing his first match in the tournament, found the courage to score and that too not from a set piece.

“Though we were out of the match, the team was in high spirits against Pondicherry. After this win, we can forget our ouster from the tournament,” said team manager P. K. Dileepkumar.

The main reason for their defeat in the first two matches was the blunders of the Kerala custodian. “In the first match, Karnataka were much too aggressive and this befuddled the custodian. He was not able to clear an innocuous shot that had just passed the goal line,” Dileepkumar said.

“The same mistake repeated in the next match too and two early goals by Tamil Nadu dented our chances. However, in the last match, we came into our own defeating Pondicherry in style,” he said.
Sadly, the Kerala team are the reigning champions of the South Zone Football Championship and this time the state even failed to qualify for the nationals to be held in Goa.

Though out of the tournament, Dileepkumar stresses that the team was one of the best. “We played well, but two blunders made us lose our way out of the tournament. The team, especially Lazim Ali and Mohammed Naseer, played brilliantly. It was just that we were unlucky this time,” he said. About 20 players from Kerala had gone with the team.

Two teams each will qualify for the nationals to be held in Goa, from the five zones all over India.