Three girls of Sports Authority of India (SAI) Jharkhand have been selected for the International School Sport Federation (ISF) World Schools Championship Football under 18, to be held from April 14 to April 22.
The names include Sumitra Marandi, Reshmi Kumari and Puspa Tirkey who are being trained by Coach Sunil Kumar and by SAI State Coordinator Sushil Kumar Verma who is also an international renowned football coach.
As of now, the three girls had left for attending National Coaching Camp for preparation of Indian Football team which is to perform at France. The camp scheduled at Pune from March 21 to April 12. The girls would be reporting at Pune on March 20.
Sumitra and Pushpa are pursuing their Class 11 at Bariatu Government Girls School whereas Reshmi is a class tenth student from Silli.
Reshmi Kumari had bagged the third position in the Asian Football Confederation under 16 held at Colombo (Sri lanka) in November last year. In January this year the Under 19 National School Games Football Championship was held at Pune wherein Puspa has won a silver medal. In the the same month and venue the Under 17 National School Games Football Championship was organized wherein Sumitra could not win any medals but was fortunate to represent till the Quarter final match.
SAI Jharkhand had begun the training of football for girls in 2006 and since then it has been producing several top class international and national female players for different age genre football tournaments.
Notable name among these achievers are Sushila Kumari who has won Gold medal in under 19 56th National School Games Football Championship and Silver medal in under 17 National School Games in 2010. She has also attended the under 16 National Girls football coaching camp in the same year.
Another recognized name of this SAI is Nagi Mardi who has won the East and North East Zone Inter University tournament in 2011 and State level Inter University (Chancellor Cup) in 2012. She has also participated at under 19 National football Championship and Asian Women's football championship in 2010.