Grooming Gen-Next footballers

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The Asian Football Confederation in Kalyani, West Bengal organised a successful under-14 football festival recently adding to a host of great developments in football at the grassroots level.

It has to be acknowledged that some serious thinking has gone in to the upliftment of football at the youth and junior level. 75 boys from various states were spotted through the course of the fest and a two-month camp awaits the fresh legs.

Interestingly, there is much in store for Kerala in these recent developments, especially as the state’s boys provided some exceptional entertainment at the festival, winning six out of their seven matches, the last one being a 2-1 win against Assam.

“It is learnt that Colm Joseph Toal, head coach of the youth development had especially asked for a strong last match and that is how Kerala and Assam locked horns. We are yet to get the details of Kerala players in the list. Our boys were quite impressive,” said Anil Kumar, secretary of Kerala Football Association.

27 teams were represented by 594 kids in the fest, which concluded on Saturday. The entire concept has been hailed by football pundits as a thoughtful way of spotting and bringing up young talents in the sport.
Adding to the celebrations was the news that the AIFF had sent its nine selectors to spot talents. This also included the Indian national coach Savio Medeira! Others present were Scott O’ Donnell, Toal, Marcus Pacheco, Aqeel Ansari, Francisco Bruto da Costa, Gautam Ghosh, Tarun Roy and Hilal Rasool Parray.

“We intend to begin the camp from the second week of March. The 75 boys chosen from the fest will be there for three weeks.

Of these 30 boys will be shortlisted. The shortlisted kids will represent India in the AFC U-14 Fest scheduled to be held in Kathmandu,” Toal was quoted as saying to the AIFF.

As Kerala, West Bengal and Goa are the major destinations for football talent hunters in the country, the festival and the resulting camp will certainly fetch better prospects for young footballers from these states.

Recently, three Kerala boys Ijas Ali from Malappuram, Shajas Shaukat of Thrissur and V. K. Vishnu of Kannur were selected for the junior Indian camp that is to be held in Goa from February 10.

They were selected based on the state’s performance in the junior nationals where it finished semifinalists, losing to Chhattisgarh 1-3 in the semis.