NEW DELHI: The final round of the 78th Senior National Football Championship for Santosh Trophy will begin on December 14, in Hyderabad, Telangana.
Twelve teams - nine winners from the group stage, two finalists from last season (Services and Goa) and hosts Telangana are divided into two groups of six each. The top four teams from each group will qualify for the quarter-final to be played on December 26 and 27. All matches until the quarter-final will take place at the Deccan Arena.
Tamil Nadu will open its final-round campaign against Meghalaya on December 15 and will take on Delhi the following day. They will then face Delhi and Odisha in the subsequent days.
West Bengal is the record 32-time champion and will be searching for its first title since 2016-17. Services, the defending champions, have seven titles to its name of which six have come in the last 11 seasons. Eight-time champions Punjab missed out on qualifying for the final round for the second season in a row. They were defeated in the group stage by Jammu & Kashmir, who qualified for the final round for the first time since 2015-16.
The groups for the final round:
GROUP A:
Services (2023-24 Champions)
West Bengal (Group C winners)
Manipur (Group D winners)
Telangana (Hosts)
Jammu & Kashmir (Group A winners)
Rajasthan (Group I winners)
GROUP B:
Goa (2023-24 Runners-up)
Delhi (Group B winners)
Kerala (Group H winners)
Tamil Nadu (Group G winners)
Odisha (Group F winners)
Meghalaya (Group E winners)