Red Bull Neymar Jr.’s Five, a globally established five-on-five football tournament kicked off the Goa qualifiers at Play Goa, Caculo Mall, recently. The city qualifier witnessed over 52 teams giving their best. In the final match, Kalina Rangers played Boom x Camilo A and won the game 1-0 to grab a place and represent Goa n the national finals in the last week of September 2021.
Red Bull Neymar Jr’s Five 2021 city qualifiers started from 21st August 2021 and concluded on the 12th September across 18 cities in the country including Indore, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Bangalore, Lucknow, Pune, Kolkata, Chennai, Siliguri, Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Jalandhar, Dimapur, Bhubaneswar, Kochi, Chandigarh and Goa. The winning teams will then compete at the Red Bull Neymar Jr’s Five national finals in September 2021 for a chance to make it to the Red Bull Neymar Jr’s Five 2021 World Finals in Qatar. It is the biggest 5-a-side football tournament in the country in-terms of locations & participants.
Red Bull Neymar Jr’s Five is the Brazilian star’s signature five-a-side tournament bringing players aged 16 to 35 from all corners of the world together to celebrate their shared passion: football. It is a fast, technical and fun competition which sees two teams of five players, sans a goalkeeper, have 10 minutes to strut their stuff and win a chance to impress Neymar Jr. The twist in this thrilling affair is that for each goal scored by a team, a member of the opposition will have to leave the field. The team with the maximum players takes the spoils.
Regarding the evolution of this global football tournament, Neymar Jr. commented, “It’s amazing. I remember as if it were today, when they showed me the proposal for the tournament, rules, boxed goals that brought me back to when I was a kid. The objective was transforming Red Bull Neymar Jr’s Five into a reference for football players whenever they think of 5-a-side games, and I think we’re on the right track. There have been more than 400,000 people over the last four years, dozens of countries in the qualifiers. It’s very cool to see more female teams and more women involved in the tournament, always at the highest level. And this is just the beginning of our journey.”
Match Results: Goa Qualifiers:
Final:
Kalina Rangers 1-0 Boom x Camilo A
Kalina Rangers won the Goa Qualifiers and will now represent Goa in the Red Bull Neymar Jr’s Five National Finals in September
Winning Team members: Danish Khan, Melvin Barboza, Craig Dsouza, Clinton Dsouza, Johnson D’Silva, Scott Moraes, Dion Menezes
The tournament is based on the belief that footballers never earn their skills in big stadiums at big clubs. Their journey almost always begins on the streets, with their friends, like it did for Neymar Jr. In the streets, their main obstacles are not the opposing defenders but the hard gravel, sweltering heat and the blinding dust. Most legends started out on a mere, obstacle-filled street, but turned the mere street into a path. A path to blinding success. Just ask Pele, Alfredo Di Stefano or Neymar Jr. Neymar Jr’s journey started with a street and a dream and continues with a stadium and a fairy-tale.
Under the Jr’s Global Five consumer activation, one can show off their skills in a creative way, record them (best play – max 60 seconds), post them to Instagram (use hashtag #outplaythemall, tag @redbullneymarjr’sfive and add your country flag) and wow Neymar Jr and his scouts. They will select 6 players and 1 wild card entry to take part as the Jr’s Global Five at this year’s World Final.