Premier Futsal gets under way on Friday from the Jawaharlal Nehru Indoor stadium in Chennai. It's a huge opportunity for the lesser known futsal players from India to brush shoulder with the greats of football and get the much-needed assistance and help from every possible way.
The exchange of knowledge between the players will be vital and more than anything, the experience the Indian players will be gaining from the event will be tremendous. It's not everyday when you get to play alongside players of the calibre of Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and Ronaldinho.
Six teams will be participating in the first season and one thing is for sure that the anticipation and excitement will be no less.
Five players will take to the field and ply their trade in two halves of 20 minutes each. Don't expect the football-like goalposts in the indoor complex, but the goalposts resemble to those you get to see in the hockey fields.
The greats of football including Pele, Maradona, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi were involved in futsal in the early days of their career and whether it is India's time to now to produce one of the big stars remains to be seen. Here is the list of players playing Premier Futsal 2016.
Complete squads
Chennai 5s: Espindola, Rohit Suresh (both goalkeepers), Vampeta, Pula, Hemni, Manel Rion, Sean, Faraz Abdul Azzez, Yash, Younus Pasha, Anupam.
Marquee player - Falcao (Alessandro Vieira).
Coach - Ney Pereira.
Kolkata 5s: Cidao, Amit Pal (both goalkeepers), Saad, Gabriel, Cirilo, Majdoub, Dida, Mohammed Islam, Subrata Dey, Pradeep Shaw, Akshay Nair.
Marquee player - Hernan Crespo.
Coach - Christian Roldan.
Goa 5s: Bebe, Vatsal (both goalkeepers), Camilo, Vander Carioca, Burrito, Georgievsky, Adonias, Michael Silva, Fredsan Marshall, Caitano, Praveendran.
Marquee player - Ronaldinho.
Coach - Octavio Gomes De Oliviera Junior.
Mumbai 5s: Luis Amado, Jo Paul Bence (both goalkeepers), Foglia, Angellot, Kevin, Federico Perez, Pablo, Sai Nikhil, Mohammed Ahtesham Ali, Shubham Mane, Chanpreet.
Marquee player - Ryan Giggs.
Coach - Felice Mastropierro.
Bengaluru 5s: Elias, Abhishek R (both goalkeepers), Romulo, Maxi, Nabil, Anatoliy, Easy Man, Zaib, Anto Rushith S, Jonathan, Sathya Kumar.
Marquee player - Paul Scholes.
Coach - Juan Jose Bernal Cierre.
Kochi 5s: Casalone, Yashwant Kumar (both goalkeepers), Neto, Chaguinha, Deives Moraes, Gekabert, Emil, Muhammed Ameer, Basil, Ansh, Stalin Daniel.
Marquee player - Michel Salgado.
Coach - Sergio Sapo.
