On 25 June 2017, a football tournament named “Football Knockouts” was held at Dadar on an artificial turf near Portuguese Church. It was a one day tournament with a knockout format. 16 teams had accepted the invitation to participate in “Football Knockouts” – Joga Bonito FC, Galvankar’s FC, Adarsh FC, Game Kings FC, Indian Hotels FC, Brothers FC, Crusaders FC, St. Jude FC, Parle Xenon FC, Alpha Football Academy, Boombastic FC, FC Bar Se Lona, MYJ FC, KVM FC, Campos Boys FC and Ethone United FC. Teams from across Mumbai, Thane and Vasai had participated and players even based from Pune had travelled to Mumbai to represent their respective teams. The tournament was well planned; the organising team had kept in mind all the basic requirements – a good venue, professional referees, proper seating arrangements and competitive teams. The tournament also had a hydration partner “Yose” – a natural drink without added sugar and any added preservatives.

On the day of the tournament it was raining very heavily, to the extent that it created doubts whether the tournament would even take place or not. Everyone was facing issue since there was water logging across Mumbai due to the heavy rains. But, by 9:30 am the rain slowed down and the teams started reporting at the venue. On the spot rescheduling of matches was needed as time was lost due to heavy rains. All teams were kept well informed about the changes that were made. The football turf was in good condition for the play to begin and the spirits of the teams were pretty high. The teams got their registration formalities done by submitting their team details and getting their team photograph shot. Each team was given complementary drinks from the tournament hydration partner. The teams were in good spirit and were vying to be crowned as the winners of “Football Knockouts” while patiently waiting for their match. Each match was observing other team’s matches keenly, noting their strengths and weaknesses to prepare an appropriate match plan.

All the teams played the matches with great fighting spirit as it was a knockout tournament and the loosing team was directly eliminated. All the matches were exciting and had held the audiences until the very last minute. The competition was so tough that 4 matches went to penalties for a result. In the tournament spread over 4 stages – Knockout Stage, Quarter finals, Semi finals and Final a total of 42 goals were scored in normal time and 6 goals were scored in penalties. In short, the tournament was a thorough entertainer for the audiences with many nail biting finishes.

Each team showed sportsman’s spirit by keeping the challenges and competition only on the football turf. Players were keen to improve on their performances to raise their playing standard. The tournament left all the teams satisfied with the level of competition that each team didn’t leave without enquiring about the details of the next edition of “Football knockouts”.