Shillong, May 26: One of the two teams from North East – Meghalaya and Mizoram – are set for a final berth in the Swami Vivekananda U-20 Men’s National Football Championship 2025 as the two teams clash in the semi-finals on Sunday.
Meghalaya defeated Karnataka 1-0 in the third quarterfinal held on May 9 at Narainpur, Chhattisgarh. However, with only two groups active at any one time, Meghalaya had to wait until the final two sets of group matches and the fourth and last quarterfinal were played.
Mizoram booked the semis berth by beating Punjab on penalties 4-2 in the final last-eight fixture on Friday after extra time ended 2-2.
While Meghalaya will have been well-rested ahead of the semifinal clash at 3:30pm on Sunday, Mizoram have momentum firmly on their side, so each team have challenges to overcome.
The first semifinal will take place at 7:30am on Sunday between Delhi and the Sports Authority of India.
Meghalaya, coached by Bobby L Nongbet, made the quarters by winning all three of their Group A games against Rajasthan 4-0, Kerala 2-1 and Bihar 7-0. 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.
