PIFA Colaba FC finish third in the Mumbai Elite League.
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Premier India Football Academy men’s football team participating in the MDFA elite division lift third place.
PIFA Colaba FC, the men’s team of Premier India Football Academy (PIFA) participated in the Mumbai District Football Association (MDFA) Elite division. There are over 250 football clubs are registered with MDFA playing the various divisions. The Elite Division being the top most division.
PIFA Colaba FC finished with 14 points. The team beat Central Railway, RCF, Mumbai Customs & Union Bank of India and drew with Mumbai FC & Kenkre FC.
The winner & runner-up were Mumbai FC (25 points) and ONGC (15 points) respectively. Both these team are playing the AIFF i-league 1st division. Considering that both the teams are big budgeted and the rest of the teams are either corporate or public sector teams this was a fantastic achievement by PIFA to be 3rd amongst these 11 teams.
The other participating teams were Mumbai FC, ONGC, Air India, Union Bank of India, Mumbai Customs, Western Railway, Central Railway, Rashtriya Chemical & Fertilisers, Kenkre FC & Akbar Travels.
The team was coached by Nirvan Shah (UEFA licensed) and managed by Sudhakar Rane. The team members were as follows. Vincent Asuquo (Captain), Clifford Garrett (Vice Captain), Kishan Sulegai (GK), Canopy Chu, Nitesh Munde, Souvaid Ansari, Sam Cruz, Nasar Syed, Mazhar Shaikh, George Udo, Nagesh Swamy, Uday Konar, Dashyang Kachru, Sarfaraz Ansari (GK), Utsav Bachani, Siddesh Shinde, Muneer Shaikh, Ganesh Kamath, David D’souza.
Dashyang Kachru (17 years old), a PIFA student since last 5 years had this to say “Joining this team, finishing 3rd and playing the i-league in the same year is a dream come true. The training at PIFA has helped me play this high standard of football.”
The team has had a fantastic season having finished 3rd in the Maha League organised by Western India Football Association (WIFA), it became eligible to participate in All India Football Federation (AIFF) organised the i league 2nd division held in Madurai.
The PIFA Colaba FC outfit has come a very long way in the past 5 years. The club started in 2006-2007 got promoted from the Senior to the Super division in their very first year of formation, they followed it up with an extraordinary second consecutive promotion to the Elite division. The team has been in the Elite division for the past 3 years.
PIFA Colaba youth teams have also performed well the U19 team played the 1st division MDFA and reached the quarterfinal round, they also won the BFRA Fair Play runners up trophy. The U17 team played the 2nd division MDFA and remained unbeaten in their group. The U15 team won the Akhil Colaba Tournament.
The side has maintained performance and result levels on a very restricted budget. The club is currently looking for sponsorship or stake holders in order to facilitate development and player growth and strive for even better results in the future.
