Thaindian News

Chennai, May 29 (IANS) Goa, Maharashtra, Manipur and Haryana completed the pre-quarterfinal line-up in the 63rd National Football Championship for the Santosh Trophy here Friday.
The quartet joined Kerala, Indian Railways, Mizoram and hosts Tamil Nadu, all of whom had made the grade from their respective Clusters here Thursday.

The winners of the pre-quarterfinals will join last year’s semi-finalists, Punjab, Services, Bengal and Karnataka in the quarter-final league, scheduled from June 2-7.

Defending champions Punjab and Bengal are in Group A and will be joined by Railways or Manipur and Tamil Nadu or Haryana.

Group B has Services and Karnataka with Kerala or Maharashtra and Goa or Mizoram completing the line-up.

In Friday’s matches, Goa ensured their progress with a 4-0 rout of Orissa, while Maharashtra took out Meghalaya 3-0, Manipur overcame Sikkim 2-0 and Haryana eliminated Bihar 3-0.

Four times champions Goa, who last won the trophy in 2005, put on an impressive display and after Marcus Mascarenhas struck in the opening minute, Beevan D’Mello (33rd), Climax Lawrence (44th) and Rowilson Rodrigues (70th) added to the tally. Goa finished their cluster engagements winning both their matches.

A two-goal strike by Pradeep Kumar (42nd, 90th) featured Haryana’s win against Bihar following an early goal by Surender Kumar (6th).

Manipur did just enough to beat Sikkim with Khenthang Paite (14th) and Singam Subash Singh (41st) doing the scoring with a goal apiece.

Maharashtra were kept on tenter-hooks by Meghalaya before scoring thrice in five minutes through Paresh Shivalkar (64th) and K Sampath Kumar (67th, 69th) for their second win.

The draw for Sunday’s pre-quarterfinals after a rest day Friday is: Kerala (cluster 1 winners) vs Maharashtra (cluster 2) at Coimbatore; Mizoram (cluster 3) vs Goa (cluster 4) at Tiruchirapalli; Railways (cluster 5) vs Manipur (cluster 6) at Tiruvallore; Haryana (cluster 7) vs Tamil Nadu (cluster 8).