A brief look at the

tournament format & structure

Santosh TrophyIndia’s Most Prestigious Football Tournament

Well, let’s face it.

Nobody in India gives a damn about Santosh Trophy.

The whole country cheered for foreign teams at the just concluded World Cup… and yet when it comes to our own players, our own tournament…

Nobody cares.

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There is no media coverage at all…

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Hence a few cyber warriors promoted this tournament out of their own free will (and time).

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#SantoshTrophy

Yet most newspapers don’t even report the score.

And the few journalists who do, make mistakes.

Some renowned National newspapers even called the Pre Quarter Finals stage as “Round of 16”!

Yeah, its usually 16 teams at this stage for other tournaments, but NOT in the case of Santosh Trophy.

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Here’s how it works - Cluster

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Last year’s winner Goa, runners up West Bengal, and semi finalists Services & Tamilnadudo not take part in the initial stages. The rest of the Indian states are divided into 8 clusters

Cluster 1: Karnataka | Meghalaya | Jharkhand

Cluster 2: Maharashtra | Chandigarh | Tripura | Andhra Pradesh

Cluster 3: Punjab | Pondicherry | Gujarat | Nagaland

Cluster 4: Manipur | Rajasthan | Jammu & Kashmir

Cluster 5: Delhi | Arunachal Pradesh | Madhya Pradesh | Uttar Pradesh

Cluster 6: Haryana | Sikkim | Chhattisgarh

Cluster 7: Kerala | Uttarakhand | Himachal Pradesh | Assam

Cluster 8: Mizoram | Bihar | Railways | Orissa

Here’s how it works. Cluster winners.

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The winner of each cluster then proceeds to the pre-quarterfinal rounds. Mizoram had the same points and goal difference as Railways. Luckily it had one more “Goal For” than Railways.

Winner of cluster 1: Karnataka

Winner of cluster 2: Maharashtra

Winner of cluster 3: Punjab

Winner of cluster 4: Manipur

Winner of cluster 5: Delhi

Winner of cluster 6: Chhattisgarh

Winner of cluster 7: Kerala

Winner of cluster 8: Mizoram

Here’s how it works. Pre-Quarterfinals.

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Now the winner of each cluster plays against the adjacent cluster winner. For example, winner of cluster 1 versus winner of cluster 2, and so on. This is a knock-out format.

Winner of cluster 1: KarnatakaVs.

Winner of cluster 2: Maharashtra

Winner of cluster 3: PunjabVs.

Winner of cluster 4: Manipur

Winner of cluster 5: DelhiVs.

Winner of cluster 6: Chhattisgarh

Winner of cluster 7: KeralaVs.

Winner of cluster 8: Mizoram

Karnataka

Punjab

Delhi

Mizoram

So you can see for yourself that Pre-Quarters stage do not even have 16 teams playing. Only 12 teams are left in the tournament, out of which only 8 teams are playing this round.

Here’s how it works. Quarter Finals.

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So now the four winners of the Pre Quarters stage Karnataka, Delhi, Punjab and Mizoram move to the Quarter Finals stage and meet the other four teams (last year’s winners) Tamilnadu, Services, West Bengal and Goa. They are equally distributed to two pools.

Group A

GoaServicesKarnatakaPunjab

Group B

West BengalTamilnaduDelhiMizoram

The matches will follow the league system. First QF match starts tomorrow (July 28, 2010).

Here’s how it works. Semi Finals and Finals.

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After this, it is simple.

Hopefully, Mizoram!

Hope that information was helpful.Cheers, and all the best to all the qualifying teams!

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