Former champions Kerala, Railways and Mizoram enter the pre-quarter final knock out stage from their respective clusters in the 63rd national football championship for Santosh Trophy on Thursday. Former champions Kerala, Railways and Mizoram defeated Chhattisgarh 3-0, Assam 1-0 and Jammu-Kashmir 3-0 respectively.
In Coimbatore, five times champion Kerala topped three team cluster I, having won both the preliminary league outings. Nagaland, originally the fourth team in this cluster had pulled out.
For Kerala, who were also seven times runners up, star striker Pradeep opened the account in the 26th minute.
After leading by a goal in the first half, Kerala increased their lead through Zuber in the 62nd and S Mathew in the 77th even as Chattisgarh failed to open their account.
Chattisgarh had drawn their game against Chandigarh as both finished with a point each.
Railways, three times winner and five times runner up, had won their preliminary league outing against Delhi while Assam had also defeated the latter in Cluster V in Thiruvallur near Chennai.
