Shillong, May 24: After more than two weeks since their quarterfinal, Meghalaya will have to be match-ready for their semifinal of the Swami Vivekananda U-20 Men’s National Football Championship 2025 where they will take on Mizoram on Sunday. The match will kick off at 3:30PM and will be streamed live on the Indian Football YouTube channel.
Meghalaya had beaten Karnataka in the third quarterfinal on 9th May in Narainpur, Chhattisgarh. However, the league is staggered, with only two groups active at any one time, so once Meghalaya won their quarterfinal they had to wait until the final two sets of group matches and the fourth and last quarterfinal were played .
Mizoram came through against Punjab on penalties 4-2 in the final last-eight fixture yesterday after extra time ended 2-2.
While Meghalaya will have been well-rested ahead of the semifinal clash, Mizoram have momentum firmly on their side, so each team have challenges to overcome.
The first semifinal will take place at 7:30AM between Delhi and the Sports Authority of India. It’s been around a month since these two teams were last seen in action.
Meghalaya, coached by Bobby L Nongbet, made the quarters by winning all three of their Group A games against Rajasthan, Kerala and Bihar. With the QF victory against Karnataka, Meghalaya are now on a four-game winning streak and have scored 14 goals and conceded just one.
This has been a vast improvement on 2024’s tournament, when Meghalaya were unable to progress from the group stage.
In Group D, Mizoram beat Maharashtra 4-0, Himachal Pradesh 8-0, Tripura 11-1 and Jharkhand 3-1 before Friday’s quarterfinal where they were pushed to the limit by Punjab.
(File photo)
