The 1985–86 Santosh Trophy was the 42nd edition of the

Santosh Trophy The National Football Championship for Santosh Trophy, or simply Santosh Trophy, is an inter-state national football competition contested by the state associations and government institutions under the All India Football Federation (AIFF), th ...

, the main

State State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...

competition for

football in India Association football is one of the most popular sports in India. The 2017 FIFA U-17 World Cup was the first FIFA event the country hosted. It was called the most successful FIFA U-17 World Cup ever, with a record-breaking attendance of 1,347,133 ...

. It was held in

Jabalpur Jabalpur, formerly Jubbulpore, is a city situated on the banks of Narmada River in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India. It is the 3rd-largest urban agglomeration of the state and the 38th-largest of the country. Jabalpur is the administrative h ...

, Bilaspur and

Bhilai Bhilai is a city in Durg district of the Indian state of Chhattisgarh, in eastern central India. Along with its twin-city Durg, the urban agglomeration of Durg-Bhilai Nagar has a population of more than a million, making it the second-larges ...

Madhya Pradesh Madhya Pradesh (; ; ) is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal and the largest city is Indore, Indore. Other major cities includes Gwalior, Jabalpur, and Sagar, Madhya Pradesh, Sagar. Madhya Pradesh is the List of states and union te ...

.Sportsworld, 1-7 January, 1986
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Punjab Punjab (; ; also romanised as Panjāb or Panj-Āb) is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia. It is located in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising areas of modern-day eastern Pakistan and no ...

defeated

Bengal Bengal ( ) is a Historical geography, historical geographical, ethnolinguistic and cultural term referring to a region in the Eastern South Asia, eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. The region of Benga ...

in tie-breaker to retain the title. 28 teams took part. Ten teams were seeded to the quarter final league. The other 18 teams were divided into six clusters from which one team each qualified to the quarter final. Two clusters each were played in Jabalpur, Bilaspur and Bhilai. The sixteen teams were divided into four groups for the quarter final.

Quarter-final

Group A

Group B

Group C

After Maharashtra and Goa finished the group with 5 points, their match was replayed to decide the semifinalist. Goa won 4–2. Group C matches were played in Bhilai. Goa had to take an 11-hour bus ride to play Punjab in the semifinal at Jabalpur two days later.

Group D

Semifinals

Final

Notes

The

RSSSF The Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation (''RSSSF'') is an international organisation dedicated to collecting statistics about association football. The foundation aims to build an exhaustive archive of football-related information from around ...

pages used as reference give the tie-breaker score as 4-1 and 4–2 in two places.RSSSF - List of Santosh Trophy Finals
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References

Santosh Trophy seasons 1985–86 in Indian football {{India-footy-competition-stub