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Forty city schools from across Pune will battle for top honours in the second edition of the Bajaj Allianz-Aspire India School 5s Under-12 Invitational football tournament, which kicks off at the Freekick Turfs, Baner on December 13.
The tournament, previously called ‘The Futsal Cup 2015’, will hereon be known as ‘School5s’, and will continue to be an annual feature owing to the popularity it earned in its inaugural run.
This year School5s in its new avatar will be played at two centres of Freekick Turfs situated at Baner and Mundhwa respectively.
The tournament, like last year, will continue to revolve around its ‘unique idea’ which actively involves the participation of an Under-10 player in each team.
Primarily, the aim of city-based Aspire India Football is to promote the sport at the grassroots level among schools from all over Pune and the Pimpri-Chinchwad area in an age group starved of appropriate competition and importantly a group which grassroots predominantly stresses to promote.
With each team allowed to register ten players in this unique 5-a-side game, a little over four hundred kids will participate over the course of six days in this tournament.
Moreover, keeping in mind the need to engage young children, School5s through its message ‘Chase Your Goals’, requires each team to register three players under the age of ten years in the squad while also playing one in the five during a match.
Sixteen groups of three teams each will make up the competition proper. Each team will play a minimum of two games in the Group Stage, and the top team from each group will qualify for the knockout phase.
Winners in the knockout phase will proceed into the quarters, subsequently, the semifinals before the Grand Finale which is scheduled Sunday, 18th December.
Last year’s winners Bharati Vidyapeeth, Baner and runners up Vibgyor High, NIBM are among the list of confirmed entries. The tournament, apart from its new name and slogan will also have four underprivileged teams participate. The four include two schools namely; Chikalwadi-based Ramabai Marathi Medium School, who will have two representations and Ideal English School, Hadapsar. The fourth team is a Sanghvi-based Academy and will play for ‘Team Aspire India.’
The idea behind including these school/ teams in ‘School5s’ is only to provide every player playing the ‘Beautiful Game’ reason to aspire and be part of a community he belongs to, which in this case is football.
For this mega inter-school event, Aspire India has teamed up with thirteen additional partners. Freekick (Venue and Powered-By Partner); Icon Group (Co-Sponsor); KMO Engineers (Goodwill Partner); Oven Fresh (Freshness Partner); Inksoul (Gift Partner); Future Group (Gift Partner); Venus Traders (Stationery Partner); Nilanjan Arts (Trophy Partner); Sports Connect (Sports Partner); Fastrack (Official Time Keepers), Power Physio (Relief Partner); Pune Play Fields and MPC News (Digital Partners)
