Team Herald
PANJIM: Cafu, Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs and Michel Salgado, besides new entrants Francisco Ruiz Serrato, Leandro Simi, Luis Tarodo and Alessandro Rosa, who is called the Pele of futsal, are all kicking the ball around in Goa.
They are the stars at the Premier Futsal League that kicked off in the State, treating Goans to the best of the indoor version of football, at Peddem Indoor Stadium, Mapusa. The Goa leg of the league started on Tuesday and the finals will be played on Saturday.
There are six teams participating in the league, and each one of them have a former soccer international as a marquee player. The teams are Goa 5’s, Chennai 5’s, Mumbai 5’s, Kochi 5’s, Kolkata 5’s and Bengaluru 5’s. Goa 5’s will be playing Bengaluru 5’s n Thursday.
The Goa 5’s team will play with marquee player Marcos Evangelista de Morais, better known as Cafu, the former Brazilian football World Cup winner. With 142 appearances for the Brazilian national football team, he is the most internationally capped Brazilian player of all time. Besides him the team has Bebe, Camilo, Vander Carioca, Burito, Georgievsky, Adonias, Michael Silva, Fredsan Marshal, Caitano and Vatsal.
The Chennai 5’s team will play with marquee player Alessandro Rosa Viera, more popularly known as Falcão, another former Brazilian futsal player along with Espindola, Vampeta, Pula, Hemni, Manel Rion, Sean, Faraz Azzez, Yash, Younas Pasha, Rohit Suresh and Anupam.
The Mumbai 5’s team has Ryan Giggs as the marquee player, a footballer who spent his entire professional career with Manchester United. Other players in the squad are Luis Amando, Foglia Angellot, Kevin, Fedrico Perez Pablo, Sai Nikhil, Jo Paul Bence, Mohammed Ahtesham Ali, Shubham Mane and Chanpreet.
The Kolkata 5’s team will play with marquee player Hernan Crespo, a former Chelsea and Inter Milan forward along with other players Cidao, Saad, Gabreil, Cirilo Madoub, Dida, Mohommed Islam, Amit Pal, Subrata Dey, Pradeep Shaw and Akshay Nair.
The Bengaluru 5’s team will play with marquee Paul Scholes, a retired English footballer, who played his entire professional career for Manchester United and is currently co-owner of Salford City, along with players Elias, Romulo, Maxi, Nabil Anatoliy, Easy Man, Zaib, Anto Rushith, Jonathan, Abhishek R and Sathya Kumar.
The Kochi 5’s team will play with marquee Michel Salgado, who is a retired Spanish professional and play as a right back along with other players Casalone, Neto, Chaguinha, Deives Gekabert, Emil, Muhammed Ameer, Basil, Yashwant Kumar and Ansh Stalin Daniel.
The matches arel being shown live on Sony Six, Sony ESPN, Sony Aath and live-streaming on SonyLiv.
