The future of football in Thiruvananthapuram district looks bright after the district football team, comprising young footballers aged below 14 years, claimed the third position in the 35th Kerala state sub-junior football championship 2015 held at Corporation Stadium in Thrissur the other day.
The third position comes as a huge achievement for the youngsters considering that they were competing against the Kozhikode, Malappuram and Thrissur teams, who are the perennial powerhouses in Kerala football, in the semifinals of the tournament.
“The junior teams from the district have been performing well at the state-level for the past few years. The result at the state championship this year is just the continuation of that and I hope we can expect better things from these youngsters in the coming years,” said Thiruvananthapuram District Football Association secretary S Geevarghese.
Thiruvananthapuram qualified for the semifinals after two wins and a draw from Group A matches. However, they found it too hard to cope with Kozhikode in the last fours as they went down 2-0 after playing without their inspirational captain and playmaker Mijun Mathias, who missed the match through suspension.
The team, though, came back and salvaged some pride when they defeated Malappuram, who had gone down to eventual champions Thrissur in the other semifinal, by a solitary goal in the playoffs to secure the third position in the tournament. Ebin Rose, coach of the district team and former Kerala state footballer, said that it is heartening to see the youngsters do well. “We might not have won the tournament, but we managed to win thousands of hearts,” Ebin said. “The quality of the youngsters in the tournament was of a very high standard and there is a great chance that many of them will go on to become top players,” he added.
Ebin waxed lyrical of his captain Mijun as well as wingers Manoj and Aneesh. “Mijun was the livewire of the team controlling the play from the midfield. If he wasn’t suspended for the semifinal against Kozhikode, I felt we could have progressed even further in the tournament,” Ebin said.
The coach also felt that fielding of overage players is still rampant in Kerala football. “The goal that we conceded against Kozhikode came from a set piece where the opposition had clear advantage in the height of their players. You can understand when a team has two or three players with comparatively larger physique, but to have nine players so is unacceptable,” Ebin said.