Anant Bakhale
anant@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: Churchill Brothers, Goa’s only club which is considered by All India Football Federation to be included in the I-League, is all set to strengthen their team in the 2018-19 season with the addition of two prominent Brazilian players who could be expected to arrive in Goa this week. They are also looking to sign a prominent player from Uganda. Both are in early twenties.
Forward Loran dos Santos (Romualdo dos Santos Silva) is a 20-year-old striker having been part of the Brazil’s national under-15 and under-17 teams. His scoring abilities took him to Flamengo and Fulminense in the Brazilian league.
The second, twenty-two-year old Matheus Cambuci Zagueiro (Mathues Gomes Santos Pires) is endowed with excellent height at 1.94m and with strong physique has been a capable defender who often plays the role of an attacker. He started with Fulminense and then moved to Vasco da Gama and then was on loan to Macae and subsequently to Cuiaba Esporte in the Serie C League.
Churchill Bros president, Churchill Alemao, who alongwith the CEO Valanka is on a pilgrimage to Vailankani, highlighted the need to rope in quality players this season.
Churchill, hoping that his club will make it to I-League, felt that under the new Romanian coach Petre Gigiu will display an attacking and attractive brand of football as the aim is to finish in the top bracket, and give everything to emerge winners.
“We need to learn from the past and rectify the shortcomings,” disclosed CEO Valanka Alemao.
“This time we have had sufficient time to plan and prepare for the tough task ahead, unlike in the past. It is now one month that the players are going through their paces with the focus being on the physical fitness. This time we will have the team playing in the Goa Professional League at full strength, unlike last season when we were very late”, she said
“The local league will be a good testing ground and with the signing of a new foreign coach we hope that the boys will put up a sterling performance, so that the club regains its earlier champions status of having won the I-League as well as the Federation Cup. We have to overcome a lot of problems, we have learnt from our mistakes and as such we hope that there will be a transformation for the better in the overall performance,” added Valanka.
