Nothing but football.
In the memory of LATE SHRI WAHENGBAM INDRAMANI SINGH, “SECOND WIM CUP 2014” (SECOND WAHENGBAM INDRAMANI MEMORIAL CUP 2014 ), a football tournament would be held on 1st February’ 2015 as a tribute to the football lovers.The tournament would be held on a knock-out basis in all the rounds and sixteen teams would be vying for the trophy.
KSFA Announced the 20 members squad for the 69th Santosh Trophy Championship. Karnataka will play the South-Zone matches at MSDA stadium in Manjeri, Kerala. Veteran Xavier Vijayakumar is leading the team.
GKs : SMD Razak, MP Thomas
Defs : KB Nikhil Das, Prem Kumar, B V Chetan Kumar (VC), Vivekananda, R. Vijay
Mid : Xavier Vijaya Kumar (C), Prakash. B, R. Manivannan, M. Lokesh, P.A Anup Theres Raj, M. Sunil Kumar, Deepan P, Shahzad K.I
Forward: K Gopi, K Kaviarasan, P Pradeep Kumar, V Vinoth Kumar, Vinu K Varghese
Manager : S.T Bhoopal
Coach : J.L Andrew
Goal keeper coach : S.S Shahi
SAP Labs India today announced that for Bengaluru Football Club (BFC), it has created a state of the art, innovative mobile application to unify the club’s growing fan base. Developed ahead of BFC’s second campaign in the I-League which kicks off on January, 17, 2015, the multi-featured application allows for superior fan engagement through social activities and communities, match day experience sharing, group discounts, news and updates, and real time visualization.
Technology today provides sports organizations with the opportunity to connect with fans by transforming interactions through online channels, mobile, and social media. BFC is a good example of this, having grown its following with dedicated fan pages and communities on social networks like Facebook and Twitter with over 61,000 likes and 7500 followers, respectively.
“As a club based in India’s technology capital and aiming to be the best in Asia, we are constantly researching new and emerging ways to provide our fans with opportunities to connect with Bengaluru FC. Partnering with SAP, which provides innovative software solutions, will only deepen the connect and engagement that we wish to have with our growing fan-base.” said Mustafa Ghouse, COO of Bengaluru FC.
With the adoption of an easily extensible and scalable architecture, users of the BFC customized mobile application will have intuitive card based content staging and easy navigation through and within sections. Fans also receive context relevant news and updates. Some unique features of the app include ‘Swarm’, a real time visualization of how fans converge towards the stadium or other hangouts, including Arbor Brewing Company, the home pub for the season; and ‘Share-a-Ride’ which allows fans to carpool to the stadium on game day.
“SAP is transforming the sports and entertainment industry across the world through new technologies and platforms. In this instance, our technology is enabling Bengaluru FC to deliver a consistent and engaging fan experience.” said Dilipkumar Khandelwal, MD, SAP Labs India, EVP & Head of Suite Engineering, Products and Innovation.
Globally, a growing number of sports leagues, teams, and stadiums work with SAP to develop integrated business management solutions that help them run their businesses. The SAP for Sports & Entertainment solution portfolio helps the industry run better, from fans to athletes to teams and league. In the field of sports, SAP has worked with the German Football Association, The International Cricket Council (ICC), TSG 1899 Hoffenheim, the Women’s Tennis Association, the National Football League(NFL), the National Basketball Association (NBA), and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) among others.
Following are the main decisions of the I-League and Federation Cup Committee meeting that took place today.
Today, Eric Benny Sports Management took yet another step to launch a new initiative and their first chapter out of Delhi and Gurgaon. Sunil Chhetri along with Eric Benny introduced the unique 4v4 Leagues here in Bangalore that are to start in November this year.
Eric Benny introduced the gathering with a short glimpse of his journey with Indian football through various initiatives that his sports management company has launched across the northern part of India. He also focused on his unique relationship with the French Embassy here in India as well as the management’s partnership with FC Metz; a club known for producing top talent such as Robert Pires, Emmanuel Adebayor, Franck Ribery and many more.
This is a time-tested association of 3.5 years when it all began in Delhi-NCR with Eric Benny envisaging a career for young Indian interested and talented in football. The mission of this roadshow travelling from state to state within a country of over 1.2 billion population to identify at the grass root level talent and thereafter what needs to be done in terms of grooming, training, ranking, selecting the top talented children, before placing them in a world-class football academy like FC Metz in France.
Sunil Chhetri, Brand ambassador for Eric Benny Sports Management, Captain of the Indian National Team and Bengaluru Football Club, underlined that there is no lack of hard work in Indian players but “unless the teacher is good to teach the right way at the right age, and players learn to simultaneously work smart and work hard, only then can there be improvement, else a fiasco.”
After having successfully sent 9 Indian children to F C Metz, EBSM is launching on 9th November across Decathlon sites in Bangalore, 8 weeks of 4V4 football league – inviting children who are passionate about football to try and get selected for a second round of all-Indian elite pool of young footballers before attempting for the top rank in order to avail the opportunity to live their dreams of a career-breaking opportunity at F C Metz. The leagues start pretty soon and Sahil Srivastava who would be managing the Bangalore chapter of these leagues can be reached on 9986556058.
Mr. Eric Lavertu, Consul General of France, termed this as an innovative cooperation with immense potential given the young population of India. It will lead India to the best international level in the future.
Pakistan football team put up a great show in Bangalore to defeat a shambolic Indian side. India did not have an answer for the two goals Pakistan scored and looked totally lost in most parts of the match.
We went about doing this match review a bit differently. Here we took a look how the match was played out on twitter.
Even though the term Bangalored has a negative connotation to it, when you see what unfolded in the 2013-2014 I-league season, it is pretty much obvious that Bengaluru FC Bangalored the I-league title. Since its inception in 2007, I-league has been synonymous to the victory of Goan clubs. In 2013-14 season, Bengaluru FC smoothly captured the reigns and brought the title home!
When Bengaluru FC backed by JSW was announced in July 2013, two tasks were in front of them. Of course building competitive team would have been the first priority, but the second wouldn’t have been that easy. Bangalore is a football loving city, when local clubs like ITI and HAL play, a good number of crowd is present in the stadium cheering these teams. The challenge in front of the newly formed Bengaluru FC would have been to appease the traditional football crowd and attract a new gamut of crowd who are mainly followers of European football. With 23 matches into the league and the title in pocket, it is obvious that Bengaluru FC managed this fete with aplomb. With promotions, smart tie-ups and social media presence, the club managed an average attendance of 7500 in every home match.
The team, captained by national captain Sunil Chhetri also lived up to the expectations. When the club was formed in July, there were not many players to choose from as other clubs had already snapped up players. However, shrewd recruitment and excellent coaching from Ashley Westwood saw many players who were earlier bench-warming with other clubs rise to the occasion. Players like Beikhokhei Beingaichho, Darren Caldeira and Thoi Singh are prime examples. While all other I-league clubs hired and fired overseas players all through the season, Bengaluru FC’s foreign contingent has been top performers for the team.
With high attendance on even week-days, Bengaluru FC with their vociferous supporters made
the home turf an impregnable fortress. Of the twelve home matches, they lost a match, drew four and won all others. Though there were frailties in away matches, the team managed to rope in victories while traveling too. With winning the I-league title, AFC Champions League matches will be on cards for Bangalore.
Bengaluru FC has been a fresh whiff of air in the otherwise morose footballing scene in India. It is almost like after the team was formed they never put a foot wrong. Let us hope Bengaluru FC’s success is emulated by other I-league clubs by reinventing themselves.
Bengaluru FC’s Long road to I-league 2013-14 title
In an evenly contested match in Goa, Bengaluru FC outplayed Goan giants Dempo SC to become the champions of I-league. Considering this is the very first season for Bengaluru FC in I-league makes it even more special. I-League, since its inception in 2007 has never seen a champion other than Goan teams. Bengaluru FC has broken the monopoly of Goan teams in the league.
Many thanks to awesome matches and atmosphere at the Bangalore Football stadium. More over, hearty Congratulations to the crew at Bengaluru FC!
Here is an ultra cool gif of a Sunil Chhetri goal. This goal against Mohammedan Sporting has to be one of the best goals scored in this I-league Season.
Captain Fantastic!
An I-league panel after evaluating the Referees’ and Match Commissioner’s reports has decided to fine Bengaluru FC INR 20000.
Reports say that a repetition of crowd trouble in the upcoming matches means doubling the fine amount.
East Bengal goal keeper Gurpreet Sandhu was showered with bottles and other items during Bengaluru FC’s last home match.