Praful Patel Biography

Dempo Sports Club is one of the most favorite picks in the ongoing Hero I-League tournament but the former champions are yet to put forward their challenge in the league. So far the champions have played two games and have settled for a point each when three points have been there for the taking. Arthur Papas is presently guiding Dempo to their first home game of the competition and he is aiming to settle for nothing less but a win against Sporting Clube De Goa at Nehru Stadium, Fatorda.

Dempo settled against defending champions Bengaluru FC to a goalless draw and then shared the spoils with the debutants Bharat FC with another goalless encounter. Dempo is surely missing the contributions of Tolgay Ozbey, their leading Australian Striker of Dempo who is yet to recover from a hamstring injury at the recently held The Federation Cup. The former champions are also missing Afghanistan defender Haroon Amiri for a similar kind of injury. The list of injured players goes long along with Romeo Fernandes and Fulgancio Cardozo. 

It is quite unlikely that the injured players will be available for the encounter against Sporting Clube,although Dempo will remain to be a favourite to walk away with full points, especially after their remarkable 4-1 victory over their rivals in the Federation Cup early this month. I-League seems to have been taking a grip in people’s heart after it has been regarded as the mainstay of Indian Football by AIFF President Praful Patel. 

It is expected that Sporting Clube is quite unlikely to repeat the mistakes that they made in the Federation Cup against Dempo. They have appointed Portuguese defender Miguel Garcia at the back, although it has not been revealed whether North East United FC captain will start the game or remain at the backseat. It is unfortunate that Brandon Fernandes and Victorino Fernandes are also injured and will not be able to participate in the game. 

Praful Pate profile as the AIFF President has been quite an integral aspect as he has uplifted the standard of I-League calling it to be the premium league of the nation. Apart from Patel, Presidents of both Dempo SC and Goa have emphasized on the improvement of the marketing strategies of the I-League as it has been done for Indian Super League. Sporting Clube de Goa started their I-League campaign this season with a 1-1 draw against East Bengal in a match, many believed, they could have grabbed much more. Sporting were down by an early goal but recovered well in the second session to draw level.