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-finals to be played on December 26 and 27. All matches until the quarter-finals will take place at the Deccan Arena.
The semi-finals on December 29 and the final on December 31 will be held at the GMC Balayogi Athletic Stadium.
West Bengal are record 32-time champions and will be searching for their first title since 2016-17. Services, the defending champions, have seven titles to their 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.
