‘Men versus boys’ is how David and Goliath mismatches in sports are often called. But at the football pitch of LNCPE, Kariavattom near here on Saturday, the contest was between ‘men and girls’ and in the end, it was the girls who gave a scare to their opponents.
The Kerala women’s team to participate in the Senior Women’s National Football Championship at Dibrugarh, Assam, later this month played a practice match against a local football club as they wrapped up their camp here.
They might be going for the senior nationals, but the majority of players in the Kerala team that will take field against Tripura on April 29 are below 19 years of age.
“Ours is a very young squad this time with only a few experienced players,” Priya P V, head coach of the team, said.
It is after a gap of three years that the women’s equivalent of the Santosh Trophy football tournament is being held in the country. Kerala has never been champions in the 19 previous editions of the tournament and they will have to top their group if they are to progress to the semi finals “For the last two to three years, there were no competitions for women footballers to compete. But now, we have two tournaments namely the senior nationals as well as the school nationals coming up all at once,” Priya said.
“We are not in full strength with players going for the schools tournament, but the girls we have are highly motivated and are combining well after playing two weeks together,” the coach said.
“All teams will be strong but we are all confident we can make it to the last four,” said Priya, who recently coached the under-13 Indian team for the AFC under-14 football festival at Sri Lanka. Kerala in group B is grouped with Bihar, Tripura, Delhi and former champions Bengal.
Kerala did not clear the group stages in the previous edition in 2011.
For achieving unattained glory at this year’s championship, Priya will need the defensive rock of Najmunissa M, midfield livewire performance of Nikhila T and goalscoring skills of Subitha Poovatta.
The team will play another practice match on April 22 at Kochi before travelling to Assam on April 23.