KOCHI: Black and White FC recorded a solitary goal victory over Espirito FC to qualify for the national finals of the Neymar Jr’s Five five-a-side football tournament at the Espirito Football Arena in Kakkanad the other day. The Kochi city qualifiers of the global football event organised by Red Bull witnessed the participation of over 60 teams.
Togy Joseph scored in the 10th minute for Black and White who will now represent Kochi at the national finals to be held in March. The national finals will see the winners from 13 other cities -- Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Goa, Delhi, Aizawl, Chandigarh, Guwahati, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai and Shillong.
The winners of the national finals will win the chance to make it to the Neymar Jr’s Five 2018 World Finals which will take place in football superstar Neymar’s home country Brazil in July which will be the biggest five-a-side football tournament in-terms of locations and participants.
The tournament saw two teams of five players going up against each other in 10-minute matches without a goalkeeper. With each goal scored by a team, a member of the opposing team will have to leave the field making it an interesting format.
The winner is the team with most players on the field after 10 minutes. The players must be between the ages of 16 and 25 while two players can be older than 25 years. Romania won the inaugural edition of the Neymar Jr’s Five while Hyderabad Sporting FC had lifted the India event last year from a field of more than 2,000 teams.