Karnataka's first Baby League concludes amongst spectacular fanfare

With cheers and torrid applause from the spectators and players alike, The Community League (TCL), which was inaugurated on July 1st 2018 has hosted over 400 children representing 7 prominent football academies in Bangalore. 30 teams participated in nearly 300 matches in the Under 8, Under 10 and Under 12 age categories. Boca Arrows from Boca Juniors Soccer Schools India won the deserved title as League Champions, with South Castle United Football Club followingas the runners-up. Mr. Sunanda Das, head of Boca Juniors Soccer Schools India was thrilled with the team’s performance, ‘At Boca, we are committed to making sure our players exercise their skills through healthy competition with other teams and academies. The Community League helped provide a platform to do exactly that. Our academy looks to bring out the best in all our players, so we tried to involve as many of them as possible in the league, and were happy to have had 3 team participating in this edition of TCL.’

The League ended in a slew of exciting play-off matches, that crowned teams as Gold, Silver and Bronze winners in each of the 3 age categories. TCL has been conceptualised and organised by the Federation for Community Sports (FCS), an organisation dedicated to elevate the importance of grassroots level sports in India. Rajat Baid, member of FCS and co-head of the organizing team was quoted saying, ‘We are extremely happy to see the enthusiasm with which not only the players, but also the coaches and parents came together each week to celebrate football. Moreover, it is apparent how each team has improved on a week-on-week basis, and that in itself proves that the goal of the league has been fulfilled. It’s an amazing feat that the coaches of these teams have achieved by training and prepping their teams consistently, leading to better and better performances each week.’

When asked about what the biggest achievement was through this league, Preetham Chandra, General Secretary of FCS explained, ‘The main goal was to ensure that players at the grassroots level come forward to compete and play in a sportive and nurturing environment. This was definitely achieved as we saw teams not only playing every week, but also improving as the weeks went by. To me, what the most impactful achievement of the league was that it brought together hundreds of parents, friends and family members of these teams, who came forward and support them. The atmosphere at every match day was electric and it’s heartening to see how much of support these budding players have to continue to play the beautiful game.

The organisers of The Community League stated that they will look at involving more teams from more academies in the next edition. They will continue to be innovative with their formats, but most importantly, they will always focus on involving the community in uplifting these young sportsmen and sportswomen through football.

LEAGUE STANDINGS:

Rank	Team	P	W	L	D	Points
1	BOCA Arrows	18	18	0	0	54
2	South Castle United Football Academy	18	16	2	0	48
3	Gameday Academy	18	13	5	0	39
4	BOCA Bolts	18	13	5	0	39
5	Mahesh Raj United Football Club	18	9	9	0	27
6	Goal Football School	18	6	12	0	18
7	BOCA Comets	18	6	12	0	18
8	Baichung Bhutia Football Schools	18	5	13	0	15
9	India on Track (IOT)	18	3	15	0	9
10	Bangalore Premier Soccer School	18	1	17	0	3

PLAYOFF STANDINGS

UNDER 8 CATEGORY

Gold Cup Winner	Boca Arrows
Silver Cup Winner	Boca Bolts
Bronze Cup Winner	Goal Football School
Top Goal Scorer	Rishan Subodh (Boca Arrows)
Best Goal Keeper	Atiksh (South Castle United FC)
Most Valuable Player	Rishaan Chowdary (Boca Arrows)

UNDER 10 CATEGORY

Gold Cup Winner	South Castle United FC
Silver Cup Winner	Gameday Academy
Bronze Cup Winner	BPSS
Top Goal Scorer	Taha (South Castle United FC)
Best Goal Keeper	Siddharth Reddy (Boca Arrows)
Most Valuable Player	Maithree (Gameday)

UNDER 12 CATEGORY

Gold Cup Winner	South Castle United FC
Silver Cup Winner	Gameday Academy
Bronze Cup Winner	BPSS
Top Goal Scorer	Daiwaik BK (South Castle United FC)
Best Goal Keeper	Aditya (South Castle United FC)
Most Valuable Player	Kenneth (Boca Arrows)