Shillong, Feb 1: It was an unhappy start to the month for Meghalaya as they were knocked out of contention for a place in the quarterfinals of the National Football Championship for the Santosh Trophy 2025-26 after Services defeated Kerala 1-0 in the last Group B match in Silapathar, Assam, this morning.
Victory (their first) pushed Services to fourth place in the group, dropping Meghalaya to fifth; only the top four teams from each group will progress to the quarters. Services and Meghalaya finished with the same points – 6 – after 1 win, 3 draws and 1 defeat each but Services have the better goal difference (0 to -2).
Services had a terrible final round campaign before today and if circumstances had been different they probably would have gone on to lose to Kerala as well. However, last year’s runners-up had already booked themselves a place in the quarterfinals before today and had guaranteed themselves first place in the group. That meant that coach Shafeeq Hassan Madathil made a whopping seven changes to the starting line-up from the previous match (which was against Meghalaya, as it happens) as he chose to rest key players for the knockout round.
That worked in Services’ favour and they scored in the 18th minute through Abhishek Pawar, which was enough to claim 3 points.
Not making it to the knockout rounds will be disappointing for Meghalaya as the players and officials were pumped up to make a real splash in Assam. Coach Khlain Pyrkhat Syiemlieh had led Meghalaya to the runners-up position in the Santosh Trophy in 2022-23 – the state’s best ever finish – and there were hopes of going all the way this year with a squad of the state’s best players.
But Meghalaya made it through the preliminary round in Shillong only by the skin of their teeth before Christmas after having a short time to prepare for the competition. However, they trained together more extensively before heading to Silapathar in Upper Assam, though a few choice players were unavailable due to club commitments.
They started with a narrow 1-0 win against Odisha (who eventually finished below Meghalaya in sixth place). All the other four teams in the group were former Santosh Trophy champions, however, and Meghalaya knew that they would be hard to beat.
What followed were two high-scoring draws – 3-3 against Punjab and 2-2 versus Services. Meghalaya held the lead three times when facing Punjab but lost the advantage every time. Three days later, it was a different story as they were two goals down to Services before clawing their way back and taking a point. Then followed a bruising 3-0 loss to Kerala before they took another point in a 2-2 draw with second-placed Railways yesterday.
The size of the defeat to Kerala, the marginal victory over Odisha and the three tied matches did it for Meghalaya – if any of these had been different the team would have progressed to the quarterfinals.
Even if that had happened, however, there were obvious shortcomings in the team. While they scored eight goals in five games – of which some were the best seen in this season of the Santosh Trophy – they conceded 10, which is more than even Odisha. The team’s performance this year gave Meghalaya’s passionate fans plenty of entertainment but there is much work to do to make the state capable of challenging the very best in the country.
(AIFF media photo)