Northpole Friends Ready To Defend Title

Island Pacific Apparel/Hai’s Autoport (Can­ada) Limited’s Futsal Carnival’s defending champions Northpole Friends are expected to create history in Nadi this weekend.

This was after the Valelevu based- side are aim­ing to be the first team to win the tournament for the second year in a row.

Northpole Friends director, Shaheen Hussain has already made their intention known as they have left no stones unturned in their preparation.

“We are coming fully prepared as defending champions but the fact is that every team will come better prepared as they try to topple us,” he said.

“Our first task is to qualify from our group, which also has teams like underdogs, Navaki Youngstars and an unknown University of Fiji Staff Two,” he said.

Northpole Friends are going to field last year’s Golden Boot/MVP winner, Altaaf Sahib, his elder brother, Mira, current Suva reps Menon Ram and Ravinesh Karan Singh along with goalkeeper, Az­mat Begg.

Hussain said threats would come from Dhanji Boys, Southern Forest, and Nadi’s Red Devils as they have top players playing for them.

“I commend the organisers for putting together such a tournament in the West and this should surely help grow futsal in the country,” he said.

“It provides us a unique experience of playing futsal outdoors in the open on a natural grass pitch which is a challenge for most of us, from the south as we’ve been training and playing in­doors”.

The main competition has 48 teams divided into 16 pools of three teams each. The top two teams from each pool go to the first round of elimina­tion, then the second round of elimination, quar­terfinals, semifinals and the final.

The official opening of the event is at 1pm today by the Assistant Minister for Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation, Veena Bhatnagar.

Meanwhile, for the first time Sportsworld is sponsoring a Futsal Under-17 competition.

Edited by Leone Cabenatabua

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