All-Indian CCFC team for Durand Cup

CHENNAI: Jude Felix will lead I-League champions Chennai City FC (CCFC)’s 22-member squad comprising entirely of Indian players in the Durand Cup, starting in Kolkata from August 2. Placed in group C, CCFC will start their campaign on August 7 against Real Kashmir FC. The other teams in the group are FC Goa and defending champions Army Green and all the matches will be held in Kalyani.
CCFC owner Rohit Ramesh said that the foreign players like Pedro Manzi, Roberto Eslava and new recruit Katsumi Yusa will only arrive in mid-August.Presently, the Indian players are undergoing a 10-day preseason training camp under coach Akbar Nawas in Thailand. “There are a lot of new faces in our squad after the departure of Edwin Sydney Vanspaul, M Regin, Alexander Romario Jesuraj and Gaurav Bora. So we are focusing on team bonding exercises during the preseason. Akbar also wanted to play in a competition to test the Indian players ahead of the season and Durand provides us with the perfect opportunity. So we decided to go with Indian players,” Rohit told TOI.
Meanwhile, among the fresh faces in the CCFC squad will be Chennaiyin FC assistant coach Syed Sabbir Pasha’s son Syed Suhail Pasha. The striker was with the Chennaiyin youth squad last season and CCFC signed him on a free transfer. CCFC players will return from Thailand next week and have a four-day training camp in the city before leaving for Kolkata.
In addition to new faces, CCFC has also recruited Sudhir Menon as chief business officer from Bengaluru FC while Ingulab Ranganathan has been promoted to chief operation officer, Ashok Nathan as sr team manager and VP Sathish Kumar as deputy secretary.
The Squad: Jude Felix (captain), R Soosaidimai, Ajith Kumar, Shem Marton Eugene, Pravitto Raju, Rajapandi Soundarapandian, Karthik Govind Swamy, Kabir Toufik, Mashoor Shereef, Sriram Boopathi, Ranjith Singh Pandre, Charles Anandraj Lourdusamy, Lenin Mithran, Prateek Kumar Singh, Pavan Srinivas, Saravana Kumar Gopalakrishnan, Vijay Thomas, Kirandas Devadasan, Monish Kumar Gajendran, Syed Suhail Pasha, Vineeth Kumar Velmurugan, Ahmed Sahib Hasan Abdul Cader