U-18 Minerva Academy FC Boys Ready For The Challenge

13 December 2015

By Minerva Academy FC Media

Chandigarh: All set to follow their senior counterparts in enthralling the football aficionados of the nation are the Minerva Academy FC U-18 boys. The young Minervans are all set for the U-18 I-League which kicks off at the Guru Nanak Stadium in Ludhiana on December 14, 2015.

The U-18 I-League is the premier football competition of the country for this age group and is a stepping stone for making it to the top clubs for the country. 25 team from all over the country are participating in the coveted league.

The League has been divided into 5 zones with each zone having 5-6 teams each. Winners of each zone makes it to the final round to play for the prestigious title.

Clubbed together with Bengaluru FC, Fateh Hyderabad and Lonestar Kashmir FC in Rest of India Zone (Group A), Minerva Academy FC U-18 boys play the Rest of India Zone (Group A) opener against I-League biggie Bengaluru FC at 11:00 AM on Monday.

Living up to its mission of providing platform to aspiring footballers in North India, the young Minervans are formed of kids from all around Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Uttarakhand and Delhi.

Trails were being held since August and the creame-de-la amongst them were groomed in the academy for the past few months.

“We have worked hard to assemble these boys and work harder to sync them to form a team. We now look like a compact unit and I am very happy at the way the team has shaped up. Its now down to what we do in the final 90 minutes,” said club director Ranjit Bajaj.

Asked about the competition, coach Keshav Dutt said, “Its definitely going to be tough. We really haven’t thought about the league, we were only concentrating on improving ourselves in each training session. We will go into every match with the aim to win, nothing else.”

Minerva Academy FC is the only club from the Punjab, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Himachal and Delhi region to have made it to the U-18 I-League.

THE SQUAD

GOALKEEPERS

ADNAN AHMED, HARPREET PAL SINGH, SUKHADEV PATIL

DEFENDERS

MUNEESH KUMAR, SALMAN LATEEF, SHERAJ SINGH, RUDRA KAPUR, KAMALPREET SINGH, ANWAR ALI, GAGAN KALYAN, AMARJEET MISHRA, DEEPAK KUMAR

MIDFIELDERS

PRINCE, PAWAN KUMAR, AMANDEEP SINGH, JATINDER KUMAR, SAURAV, INDERJIT SINGH, RIZUL PATIYAL, DEEPAK KUMAR

FORWARDS

KRISHNA PANDIT, ABHISHEK PATHANIA, PREM, SHUBHAM SARANGI, ROHIT JHAMAT

FIXTURE

14th Dec : Bengaluru FC vs Minerva Academy FC