Felix, Mariano retained as captain, coach for Santosh Trophy

Sat, Jul 24 10 08:07 PM

Panaji, Jul 24 (PTI) Sporting Clube de Goa keeper Felix, who captained Goa to Victory last year in the Santosh Trophy, will lead a 20-member squad in the National Football Championships which is underway in Kolkata. Goa, who won the title last year after beating Bengal, will leave for Kolkata on July 27. They play their first quarter-finals league match against Karnataka on July 29. Mariano Dias, who has been retained as the coach for the second year, is optimistic that they will do well to retain the title inspite of 10 players from last year''s team missing out on account of national duty and injuries. "Our team is a mixture of youth and experience. I have faith in my boys who show lot of promise. I am confident that they will defend the title. We have a lot of promising talent and I am happy the way things have gone so far," Dias said. "The only concern is the upfront in the absence of Joaquim Abranches who is out due to injury, where we lack sharpness in scoring goals. But we have Peter Carvalho who will be used as a makeshift striker," he said. "The first match against Karnataka is important and we must win to raise our confidence and things will fall in line," Dias said. .

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