Goa’s Salgaocar Sports Club are the new champions of the I-League, India’s Professional Football League! They won their final Round 26 league match 2-0 away to JCT in Ludhiana to move to 56 points from 26 matches and at least three points clear of their closest rivals Dempo SC and Churchill Brothers SC.
It is the first I-League title for Salgaocar’s, but their second overall national league title as they had been champions of the old National Football League in the 1998/99 season under coach Shabbir Ali with players like Juje Siddi Roberto Fernandes, Derrick Pereira, Shanmugam Venkatesh, Jules Alberto, Alvito D’Cunha and the legendary Bruno Coutinho.
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Now a new generation in green-and-white has created history led by their Moroccan coach Karim Bencharifa, his coaching staff, the club management and a young team led by the seasoned Yakubu Yusif from Ghana and Japanese recruit Ryuji Sueoka from the front. Salgaocar’s strength has been the team with Karim able get the best out of his boys with players like Gilbert Oliveira, Cajetan Fernandes and other youngsters making their breakthrough as the team also had an able goalkeeper in Karanjit Singh at the back.
After East Bengal Club had been the initial pace setters in the 2010/11 I-League season, Salgaocar took over and until a few weeks before the end of the league it looked as if they could seal the title before the last match day; but losses to Air India, Dempo SC and Mumbai FC did make the title race interesting again, but they won their key match 3-2 against title contenders East Bengal Club after being 0-2 down and that match will have instilled enough confidence in the team to ensure that they do not allow the title to get out of their hands.
After the match Karim Bencharifa said, “We are officially the Champions. I knew we had almost won it. But with this victory, the Championship is officially ours!”
“I need to salute my players; I need to salute the support staff; I need to salute the management for their support. The team-spirit has been excellent,” Karim added.
