A football feast awaits the football crazy fans of Kerala when the curtain goes up on the quarter-final league matches in the National Football Championship, for the Santosh Trophy, at the Jawaharlal Nehru International stadium in Kochi on Friday.
In the inaugural match, hosts and defending champions Kerala take on Cluster-1 qualifier Uttar Pradesh while in the second match formidable Maharashtra will cross swords with Services.
Besides Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Assam, Karnataka and Goa have joined last year's semi-finalists -- Kerala, Punjab, Services and Manipur, who are seeded direct into the quarter-final league.
The 12 teams have been divided into four clusters of three teams each. Cluster One has Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, and Delhi, while Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka are in Cluster two. Services, Maharashtra and West Bengal are in Cluster three and Manipur, Assam and Goa form Cluster four.
On the merits and demerits of the teams, the onus of course will be on Kerala, seeking their second consecutive win in the prestigious tournament after their triumph at Delhi in the last edition.
With players like mercurial striker I M Vijayan and Asif Saheer, and brilliant medios Abdul Naushad and Sylvester Ignatious to assist Kerala, the team looks better equipped in all departments of the game.
Three-time champions Goa, the cynosure of all eyes during the preliminary stages, where they scored 32 goals in three matches without conceding any, will be a threat to Kerala's aspirations.
This is the 12th time that Kerala is staging the prestigious tournament and the third that Kochi is hosting.
Kochi has proved lucky for Kerala, as it won the title in 1973, defeating Railways 3-2 in the final, and again in 1993, with a 2-0 victory over Maharashtra.
Goa star striker Freddy Mascarenhas has proved unstoppable in the preliminary matches, scoring 10 goals from three matches, including a hat-trick against Rajasthan. Climax Lawrence, who also scored a hat-trick against Sikkim, and Anthony Pereira should prove able allies to Freddy.
Manipur, with several Indian stars in their ranks, are certain to give their famed rivals a run for their money. The team's fortunes rest on the shoulders of the untiring and innovative Tomba Singh and Mani Thombi Singh (Mohun Bagan), James Singh and Surkumar Singh, who plays for Mahindra United, the recent Federation Cup winners.
Twenty-nine times winners West Bengal, without star striker Baichung Bhutia in their ranks, did not perform up to expectations in the preliminary matches, but are expected to play to their potential.
Punjab have come to the tournament with a well-balanced outfit and are sure to avenge their defeat in the final of the last edition at Delhi.
Maharashtra, who emerged as group winners at Thiruvananthapuram, will heavily depend on their strikers, international Abhishek Yadav and Soccor Velho.
The groups:
Group I: Kerala, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi.
Group II: Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.
Group III: Services, Maharashtra and West Bengal.
Group IV: Manipur, Assam and Goa.
