Pre-qualifier winners rejoice; losing teams bank on votes
AT STAKE Teams continue to battle it out in pre-quarters as the winners will get to play main tournament in October
NEW DELHI: The first pre-qualifer matches of Hindustan Times Great Indian Action this weekend saw some thrilling football moments. Held at Ansal University, Gurgaon and Frank Anthony School, New Delhi, the first weekend of the pre-qualifiers witnessed some tough tackles, amazing saves and close penalty shoot-outs.
The parents and supporters cheered from the sidelines as the players displayed amazing talent. Winners of pre-qualifiers go straight into the main HT GIFA tournament happening in October.
Archana Gulati, the mother of the goal keeper Karan Gulati from SPV Potatoes, who won their pre-qualifier, was a happy mom. “Studies are important but all round development is even more critical. I’m not a very ambitious mother. I am happy as long as they are happy doing what they love. Even though pursuing sports takes a lot of time, I want my kids to try out everything right now as later they won’t get time once they start working. In school, they can only get so many opportunities, so it’s great to have a platform like HT GIFA that lets them compete and test their skills,” she said. Chetan Rana, the manager of Team Suicide Squad from Gurgaon, who won their pre-qualifier match and were first timers in the tournament said he really appreciated the hard work that players are putting in. “I am very proud of them and the hard work they do. We train every alternate day in the evenings and are looking forward to the main HT GIFA tournament.”
“We love watching English Premier League and other club footballtournaments.Ourfavourite team is FC Barcelona and it is the love for football that has united the members of the team,” said Amin from FC Grand Omaxe who won and made it into main tournament.
Those who lost, didn’t lose heart though. They were happy that they have a chance to come back into the tournament and play in October through the wildcard voting slots. Many of them said they are already leading on votes and were confident to enter the main tournament. SANGEETA, Mother of Tushar Kumar from Team SN Warriors from Sarojini Nagar SAHIL, Team Sapphire Stars (Noida) player dwells on his strategy after losing to city rivals Grand Omaxe FC RIPUNJAY KUMAVAT, Ramaprastha Warriors, whose team is in the top 3 on the voting leaderboard. This is also a new feature introduced this year in HT GIFA to give teams who lose in the pre-qualifiers another shot at getting into the main tournament. The idea behind this was to give more teams a chance to play and give a wild card entry back into the tournament to teams that enjoy popular support of the community, be it their society or school. The top 60 teams will get a chance to get a direct entry through voting –
30 in each catergory
(Junior and Senior).
There will also be some bonus voting contests on the HT GIFA This year there will be one winner of HT GIFA across Delhi NCR, so the teams will get a chance to play with the best of best across 3 cities – Delhi, Gurgaon and Noida. The initial rounds will be held separately for Gurgaon teams but towards the last few rounds, they will play with the Delhi and Noida teams and get a chance to compete against a bigger pool of talent. The winners of HT GIFA this year will be football champions of all of Delhi NCR.
The kids lost the prequalifiers, but they haven’t given up hope and are trying to collect votes. Even though they are under pressure of exams next month, it is great to see them try to balance studies and sports. Yes, the strategy is to come back through votes. We are asking our friends to vote and share it with their friends as well in school. We lost only by 1 goal so I feel with more practice we can win the next time. We went on stage at a recent function in our society and told them that we are playing for them, so we need their votes and a lot of people voted for us. We also went door to door in our tower and asked for votes.