Hotfut located at Koregaon park was lit with two days of frantic footballing action as the Legends Cup paid a visit to the west coast city of Pune to find the “Legend” of the city. After two days of breathtaking action, it was Willis who took home the crown and thus also punching their ticket for the main event at New Delhi later this year.
A total of 15 teams turned up at the venue to decorate the event with their flair on the ball and incandescent spirit. The teams along with their rapturous supporters made it quite a scene at Hutfot.
The quarter-finals of the tourney turned out to be the one of the fascinating ones with the heavily favoured teams HDFC Bank and Intelenet squaring off against Willis and Capita respectively. The crowd was in for a surprise as both the favourites took a tumble. Whilst Willis toppled HDFC 3-1, Intelenet were in for an even bigger shock as Capita handed them a 4-1 loss.
After finding momentum in the quarters, it was no surprise when it was Capita and Willis who showed up for the final as well. After taking an early lead, Willis held on to the lead going 1-0 up into the break. Capita, however, made a spirited comeback and found the equalizer deep into added time.
Willis, however, didn’t let the heartbreak of conceding a late goal get to their heads and controlled their nerves to take the championship in a penalty shootout.
The victory was made even sweeter when you consider the fact that Willis were knocked out of the Mumbai leg of the competition just a few days earlier in the semi-finals. The loss seemed to have hit them hard as they came back with a vengeance in the tournament in Pune.
“It was a tough loss as we were the winners last year and this is one event we want to play at our very best,” said Anil Shetty of Willis.
“It was a sweet win after having lost the semis in Mumbai. Everyone played really well. Capita played exceptionally well to put us in a spot but by God’s grace we have won it again. Now we look to go to Delhi and win,” said the best player and Willis Captain, Akash Jain.
Thus, Willis becomes the fourth team to book their spot in the national finals, joining HDFC Bank(Delhi), JP Morgan(Mumbai) and Accenture(Bangalore) for the grand finale.
Here is the list of the Winners and Runners up in The Legends Cup -:
Champions Cup
Winners - Gallagher Operations(Best Player - Umair Shaikh, Best Keeper - Kalpesh Kadam )Runners Up - Zensar ( Best Striker - Swapnil Naik)
Legends Cup
Winners - Willis (Best Player - Akash Jain , Best Keeper - Anil Shetty )Runners up - Capita (Best Striker - Karthik Kali)
