Futsal 2012, the official football tournament of the Amritapuri campus, was inaugurated on October 16 with a friendly match between two faculty teams led by Dr. Sankaran, Principal, Amrita School of Engineering and Dr. Bipin Nair, Dean, Amrita School of Biotechnology.
Both teams scored two goals each and the friendly match ended as a draw. “It was a wonderful match. I used to play soccer when I was studying and I played for my institution and my state many times,” reminisced Dr. Bipin Nair.
Over the next few weeks, as the tournament got underway, students, staff and faculty members lent it their total support.
“Futsal this year caught the imagination of one and all. It was the biggest football fest we had ever seen. It was as if the Amrita fraternity became totally gripped with football fever. As teams played against other teams, conversations everywhere centered on terms such as penalty, free kick, hat-trick, etc. A wave of enthusiasm and celebration was palpable through the entire campus,” remarked Mr. Vimal Kumar, Physical Education Instructor at the campus.
He gave credit for the superb organization to the Physical Education Team led by Br. Anand Shenoy.
Seventy-two teams fought against one another in two preliminary rounds that saw sixteen teams emerge victorious. These sixteen squared off against each other in the pre-quarter finals. The quarter finals and the semi finals helped advance the best eight and four teams respectively.
Teams Masters’ FC and Veruthe Oru FC were beaten by teams Titanz and Keerikkadans, who secured their entry into the grand finals.
Team Titanz had lifted the trophy the previous year. This time, as defending champions, the pressure was on them. But they didn’t disappoint. As the game entered the penalty shootout, they defeated Keerikkadans 5-4.
“The magic in our team spirit and God’s grace helped us win two times in a row,” the triumphant students remarked.
The team included final-year students Arunjith S., Sarath E. S. and Moshin Moosa of BBM and third-year students Sanal S. and Vishnu S. Menon of BTech (Computer Science).
Sanal S. of Titanz bagged the best player award and Aravind Krishnan of Keerikkadans was declared the best goal keeper.
“It’s our effort throughout the years of our studies that brought us this victory again. This is really a dream-come-true moment. Since we enjoyed very good synergies in our team, we coordinated and executed our plan very well on the field. We would honestly say that our friendship played a vital role in our victory,” the winning students shared.
The winners and the contestants were all praise for the organizing committee.
“It is difficult to imagine that such a professionally-conducted tournament could be organized at institution-level. Our organizers followed the model of the English Premier League. Players received refreshments at regular intervals. The DJ performances were amazing. We are so grateful to the organizers for the excellent results,” shared the tournament semi-finalists.
In addition to the student games, nine faculty/staff teams participated in a separate three-day mini-tournament. The final was played between Chelsea FC and ICTS FC. The former, with many district-level players, won. This team comprised of Mr. Jailal S., Mr. N. Pandurangan, Mr. M. Sreejith, Mr. Subin K., Mr. Bijeesh C., Mr. Shamin P., Mr. Agile E. and Mr. Naveen Suresh.
“Our team played really well. We had a plan and we were able to execute it well on the field. We will try to keep the momentum going the next time around as well,” joyfully stated skipper Jailal S.
December 26, 2012
Amritapuri Campus
