Bengaluru FC to host HAL, ITI legends at Bangalore Football Stadium

Indian Super League club Bengaluru FC on Tuesday announced that it would be organising an exhibition game between erstwhile football powerhouses, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited SC (HAL) and Indian Telephone Industries FC (ITI) at the Bangalore Football Stadium, on Saturday, January 19 at 4 pm.

Speaking on the decision to organise the game, club COO, Mustafa Ghouse said, “HAL and ITI are institutions, not only in Karnataka but on the Indian football map and this game is our way of honouring their contribution to the sport.

"We’re proud that Bengaluru FC belongs to a city that has a rich football history and a lot of it is down to these two teams,” he added.

Notable players who will be taking part in the showpiece event include RC Prakash, Balaji Narasimhan, M Babu, Sunil (ADE), Muralidharan and Ilyas Pasha for ITI, while HAL will have the likes of Xavier Vijayakumar, Sunil, Satish Kumar and Gangadharan in their ranks.

Proceeds from the sale of tickets to the game, which will be available on matchday at the Bangalore Football Stadium, will go to the HAL and ITI teams, and will be priced between Rs 30 and Rs 100.

There was intense rivalry between the two teams during their heydays. Any match between HAL and ITI would attract more than 20,000 people into the stadium.

SQUADS:

HAL: Basheer, Jeevanandan, Willian Crasta, Satish Kumar, Sunil, U Babu, Rajendra, Raju Sr., Paul, Somu, Gangadaran, Lawrence Sr., Lawrence Jr., Xavier Vijayakumar, Arvind, Yoganathan, Jacob, Vinod.

RD Babu (Coach), Ravindranathan (Manager).

ITI: Sundareshan, Mohan Kumar, Shakaf, Subramaniam, Aslam Khan, P. Kumar, Thomas, Rahmathulla, Rajashekar, Emanuel, Fairoz, John Kenneth Raj, Karun Raj, Vigalmani, Raja, Nazeer Ahmed, Ambrose, RC Prakash, Lionel, Vishnu, Muthukrishna, Ashwath Murthy, Rozario Estebiero, Ronnie Estebiero, Padmanabhan, Sendhil, Avijit Chaterjee, Francis, Verghese, Venkatesh R., Manohar, Harry Frank, Kumar, Harry Philips, Dinakaran, Antic, Tamilmuthu, Charles.

Sri. Kantharaj (Coach), M Babu (Manager).