Air India’s experienced midfielder Vijith Shetty has been appointed captain of the Maharashtra team to participate in the football competition of the 35th National Games to be held in Kerala from February 1 to 9, 2015.
Former India striker and AFC ‘A’ License holder Godfred Perira (current Air India FC coach) is the coach for the team and Sudhakar Rane from PIFA Colaba Sports is the manager of the team. Leading the contingent will be Kiran Chougule from Solhapur who in past has managed many teams from Maharashtra for nationals.
Maharashtra have qualified for the National Games by virtue of reaching the semi-finals of the 68th National Football Championship for the Santosh Trophy 2014.
Maharashtra are placed in Group A alongside hosts Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Goa. The top two teams from each group will qualify for the semi-finals.
Maharashtra Squad
Ubaid C.K., Chetan Dawdhariya, Sachin Gawas, Raviraj Kurne, Omkar Singh, Mohamed Irshad T V, Nitesh Monde, Mohd. Shafique, Faisal T., Vijit Shetty (Captain), Siddarth Nayak, Akshay Kamble, Shahbaz Pathan, Shakti Singh Thakur, Vaibhav Shirley, Praveen Sharma, Karan Atwal, Jay Kumar Patil, Sandesh Gadkari and Abhishek Ambekar
The fixtures for Maharashtra are as follows…
Feb 1: Maharashtra vs Kerala
Feb 3: Maharashtra vs Goa
Feb 5: Maharashtra vs Tamil Nadu