Steven Fernandes of Tuff Laxmi Prasad SC will lead a 20-member Goan squad for the Santosh Trophy to be held at Siliguri.
Addressing a press conference, Shrinivas Dempo, President of the Goa Football Association (GFA) said that the Santosh Trophy 2014 will see the competition divided into five zones -- South, North, North East, East and West.
The Airtel Goa team will go through from the West Zone group which comprises of two clusters.
Group A consists of Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, while Group B consists of Goa, Gujarat and Daman and Diu which will be played at Tilak Stadium, Vasco and Duler Stadium, Mapusa.
The winner from each group will qualify for the knock-out stage.
Goa will play their first match tomorrow against Daman and Diu and the next one against Gujarat on February 3.
"Shrinivas Dempo has expressed confidence that the young Goan team which consists of Goa's Professional Clubs with eight of them from Sesa Football Academy will perform well and bring back the Santosh Trophy home after a gap of five years," stated Dempo.
Vishwas Gaonkar (Technical Director) is confident that this bunch of talented players would do well in the Santosh Trophy and bring back glory for Goa as seen yesterday in the Lusofonia Games finals.
Goa squad: Steven Fernandes(c), Reagan Juliao (GK), Jerson Pereira, Prajyot Naik, Maio Mascarenhas, Meldon Silva, Neville Miranda, Stanley D'Silva, Ponif Vaz, Lenston Alfonso, Sachin Gawas, Perryson Rebello, Guirish Naik, Valeriano Fernandes, Nicholas Fernandes, Brandon Fernandes, Agnelo Colaco, Lavino Fernandes, Umesh Harijan and Alvito Miranda.
