TEAM HERALD
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PANJIM: Three Goan footballers and two coaches have been named in India football team for AFC U-14 championship to be held in Mashhad, Iran. Besides hosts Iran, India have been clubbed with Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Pakistan in Group D.
India play their first match against Iran on April 23 followed by a match against Kyrgyzstan the following day. India’s third match has been slated against Pakistan on April 28 while the last match is against Turkmenistan on April 29. The team leaves for Iran early Saturday (April 20) morning.
The footballers are goalkeeper Antonio Da Silva, defender Flan Ansil Gomes and midfielder Ribhav Jatin Sardesai with the officials being Jude Barreto as assistant coach, goalkeeping coach Mario Aguiar.
Flan Gomes was not originally listed among the probables and it was only when Savio Messias, AIFF’s deputy chairman of technical, coaching and development committee brought to the notice of the AIFF officials that Flan was declared Most Valuable Play in Barcelona where he participated in inter-FCBEscola international football tournament and as such deserved to be called for a trial, that the promising Goan youngster proved his mettle and was selected on sheer merit, being an outstanding footballer. Thanks to Savio, Flan will be now donning India colours officially in an official, recognized championship.
The squad: Goalkeepers: Dheeraj Singh, Mohammad Nawaz, Antonio Da Silva.
Defenders: Amarjeet Mishra, Amartya Basu, Anwar Ali, Jaskaranpreet Singh, Jitendra Singh, Smiel Diyali, Flan Ansil Gomes, Ritik Rai.
Midfielders: Abhijit Sarkar, Hrishi Dhat, Mohammad Shahjahan, Sudipto Malakar, Ribhav Jatin Sardesai, Ajay Alex Anthony.
Forwards: Abuthaheer, Gaston D’Silva, Khumanthem Ninthoinganba, Shubham Sarangi.
Head Coach: Narayana Menon. Assistant coach: Jude Barreto. Goalkeeping coach: Mario Aguiar.
Physiotherapist: Vishnu Nair. Team manager: Anshuman Arya.
