Kottayam: The Kerala Football Association (KFA) on Thursday announced the team for Santosh Trophy South Zone Qualifiers 2016 that will kick-start from February 9 at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Chennai.
#kerala_football team for #SanthoshTrophy pic.twitter.com/T7EZqSXfkx
— Pratheesh G Nair (@pratheeshjourno) February 4, 2016
Shibin Lal of State Bank of Travancore will lead the team.
There is no dearth of experience in the 20-member Kerala team, which features veterans like Surjith V.V. of KSEB and Shibin Lal. The duo jointly bring to the ground 11 years of Santosh Trophy experience. The team also fields 14 players who have had previous outing in the tournament. Among the rest four, two have represented the state in the Under-21 nationals and two have had handled I-League assignments.
However, U. Jimshad and Usman Ashik who had a fine outing in the last edition of the event will be missed.
Kerala, in the Group 'A', will face Andaman & Nicobar in their opening match on February 9. The team will face Telangana next on February 11 and will take on the home team Tamil Nadu on February 13.
Group 'B' features Santosh Trophy 2015 champions Services, Karnataka, Puducherry and Andhra Pradesh.
In 2015 edition, Kerala lost to Services 3-0 in the semifinals after coming into the knock-out stages as runner-up from Group 'B', behind Mizoram.