Nov 08: Akshay Kumar Mall scored a second-half brace to seal the place in the final round of the AFC Under-16 Football Championship, which is to be held in 2008. India convincingly outscored Bhutan 4-0 in their last group C match qualifier played at the Prince Mohammed Bin Fahad Stadium in Dammam, Saudi Arabia last night.
According to AIFF, the Indian team was leading 2-0 in the first half with Aashish Chettri and Abhishek Das providing the team a much important early lead in the match.
Later Mall came up with two fine goals in the 68th and 83rd minute finishing off India's sparkling campaign.
India finished second in the group with a total of 13 points. Group-toppers Iraq also finished with 13 points but led the tally with a better goal average of their’s -28 against India’s -2.
In the qualifying tournament, India won four matches and held Iraq to a 2-2 draw. The Indians started their campaign routing Sri Lanka 6-0 before playing draw with Iraq. They defeated Lebanon in the third match and hosts Saudi Arabia in the penultimate match with an identical margin of 3-0 before last night's 4-0 victory against Bhutan.
Hosts Saudi Arabia finished third with nine points after losing to Iraq. Meanwhile, All India Football Federation (AIFF) President Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi announced a cash reward of Rs 20,000 for each member of the team. This noble step will certainly give boost and add spark in young footballers’ morale.
INDIAN UNDER-16 TEAM: Harshad Deepak Meher, Gurpreet Singh Sandhu, Presley Mascarenhas, Vishal Kumar R, Deepak Devrani, Ajit Dhruva Bhoir, Tonmoy Ghosh, Arshpreet Singh, Vikas Gulia, Ashish Chetri, Bijendra Rai, Milan Singh, Bikramjit Singh, Akshay Vimal Kumar Mall, Shilton Sydney D Silva, Subhojit Mazumdar, Tirthankar Sarkar, Ralte Lalrindika, Manandeep, Malsawnfela, Prem Kumar, Abhishek Das and Vivek Kumar.
OFFICIALS: Sanjoy Sen (Coach), Narayana Menon (Coach), Amit Kumar (Physiotherapist), Tanumoy Basu (GK Coach), Ankur Dutta (Manager) & Colm Joseph Toal (Chief Coach).
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Comments:
david
November 11, 2007 at 12:00 AM
Bravo! It's nice to be an Indian football fans again. Cash reward of Rs 20,000 for each member of the team is not enough for a prosperous country like India... This is just peanuts compared to the amount spent on cricket.