Manipur emerge winners of Sub-Junior Girls National Football Championship
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, July 12 2018:
After a gap of two years, Manipur clinched the Sub-Junior National Football Championship 2018-19 title with a 2-1 win over hosts Odisha in the final at Cuttack today.
The championship was organised under the supervision of All India Football Federation since July 1 with 22 teams clubbed into 7 teams vying for top honours.
Manipur played out very competitively with the hosts Odisha who enjoyed a home crowd support today to end two years title drought.
Manipur had a slow start but it was L Babycha who found the breakthrough in the 16th minute.
The game however shifted towards the hosts around the half hour mark and soon Sumitra Hembram came up with the leveller in the 33rd minute to give her team a fresh hope.
The latter part of the game was an end to end affairs as both teams toiled hard to hit the winners but it was in the injury time (90+3) that H Silky snatched a last gasp goal and handed Manipur the deserving championship title.
The State team were led by N Sivananda as team coach and Ch Keilani as team manager.
Manipur clubbed with Tamil Nadu in Group D secured 8-1 and 6-1 wins against the latter team and booked the quarter final berth.
Manipur defeated Jharkhand by 5-1 goals in the quarter final before edging out Himachal Pradesh by 3-2 goals in the semi-final.