Ailing football to set eyes on goal

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Once a powerhouse of football, the youth development coaches of India are bewildered to see the staggering decline of talents from the state. Not many players are in the youth national teams and most of the campers do not impress the coaches.

“During our time, this was not the case. There were a number of talented players and several of them had prominently contributed to the game in the country. But inspecting the youth camps of the national team, we can see a drastic decrease in the number of players coming to play”, says Renjith C M, former Indian youth team captain and youth team coach.

The major problem the state lacks in football is grass root development.“There is a lack of youth development programmes and other projects to find out the talents in the southern states. We need Football academies to groom our younger ones,” he explained.

“Once we train our youth, none are following up their progress. They just go into oblivion. There must be a systematic plan to revive football training,” he said.

According to him, football has undergone a major transition. “The players are not getting enough exposure as there are not enough football tournaments in the state. The infrastructure is also deplorable. A holistic development must be there for talent hunt,” he says.

C. Sethumadhavan, the secretary of Sports and Education Promotion Trust (SEPT), says that though the interest in football is increasing there is a lack of youngsters coming up. Apart from two or three players, there is not an impressive presence of players from the state in national level. However, this is going to change as several initiatives have sprung up to train youngsters recently," he said.

About 300 players are coming for a selection trial, which is four-fold compared to previous years. However, there is lack of talents due to the lack of good training facilities, he pointed out.

He says that the state experienced about two-three years of inactivity in youth development and this is showing up in the current national youth teams. “We lack a precise grass root development plan. There must be academies to bring up talents and the present schemes, both private and government, have their shortcomings,” he explained.

Through SEPT youth camps, three players have already been selected to the Indian camps. “Within four to five years, I think Kerala will be back to its glory. However, the lack of infrastructure is a major hindrance,” he said.

Through SEPT youth camps, three players have already been selected to Indian camps. "Within four to five years, I think Kerala will be back to its glory. However, the lack of infrastructure is a major hindrance," he said.