The tenth day of the 57th edition of the Subroto Cup International Football Tournament saw four teams securing their path to the third and fourth quarterfinals after being successful in winning their respective matches. Government Model School from Chandigarh, NCC Directorate from Odisha, Malaysia’s NFDP and Mizoram, qualified for the next round of the tournament.
There had been confusion in who would qualify from Pool F between the two teams, Mizoram’s Government Middle School (Kolasib) and Navodaya School (Manipur). But a clear 5-0 win for the Mizoram boys saw them grab a spot in the last 8 in the Sub-Junior Boys (U-14) tournament.
Earlier in the day, Chandigarh, Odisha and the team from Malaysia, had ended the league stage by topping their respective groups to enter the next phase. Chandigarh will be facing Mizoram in the third quarterfinals as NCC will take on the Malaysian team in the fourth quarterfinal. The winners of both the quarterfinals will join Afghanistan and Bangladesh as the semi-finalists.
Mizoram’s qualification was helped by L. Sanga scoring a hat-trick for their side as Zotham Maiwa and Abraham scored a goal each in helping their side running rout against Navodaya. In another match held in the afternoon, Meghalaya’s Lawmei Secondary School and Saifai Sports College (Ettawah) played out a goalless draw in what was a match that made no difference to the eventual results of the Pool.
In other matches held at Dr. Ambedkar Stadium and New Wellington Camp ground, Chandigarh secured qualification as they kept their 100% record by beating Gujarat 7-0. Whereas, NCC snatched the quarterfinals’ spot from Uttrakhand hands as they won the match 4-1. Malaysia’s NFDP got a walkover from Army School as they had failed to make an appearance at the tournament.
The Sports Authority of India (East) boys from Kolkata beat Nirmalamata High School from Daman & Diu with a margin of 13-0, but they failed to qualify for the quarterfinals. It meant that the Kolkata side finished second on the table in Pool A as they had lost to Chandigarh’s Government Model Shool by 0-3 loss in their opening match earlier on Wednesday.
The NCC had already qualified from Pool G, therefore the match between two Sainik Schools from Manipur and Assam, which ended in a 1-1 draw, turned out to be inconsequential for the two teams. In another insignificant Pool D match, Haryana’s team defeated the Army Public School from Delhi with a 3-0 margin.
The day was again action-packed and it means that now the tournament will switch to the final phase with only four quarterfinalists and two semi-finals left in the hope of winning the Subroto Cup.
