I wish to see our young academy players represent country in next 7—8 years – Firmin D’souza

by Chittu Shetty September 29, 2017

Speaking to Football counter, the Head Coach of SRS sports expects people to keep a realistic expectation from the Academy, stating nobody can make a world class player in just a year.

One of the biggest hurdles, an Indian footballer faces on his journey has been lack for proper training facilities. Lack of footballing education at the right age has also been the concern for Indian Football. To bridge this gap between the players of top countries and India, SRS Sports has come in collaboration FCV International Academy (UK) to start an academy in the heart of Mumbai to groom the young football talents of the city in a proper manner and at a right age.

When asked about what are the expectation from the Academy, Firmin D’souza, Head Coach of SRS Academy, put it in very blunt and clear words, “We can’t expect results from Day 1. Nobody can make a world class player even in just a year, they have to be nurtured and trained properly, and they have to be given proper match experiences,” Before he stated the distant aim, “Yes, we would like to see our Academy boys playing in State leagues in the coming 3-4 years and then represent the country in 7-8 years.”

The Academy will run trails from September 28^th to October 2^nd for the age groups of U12, U15, U18, and U21. Two sets of squad will be created in each age group – Development and Performance Squad. While the development squad will aim to inculcate these youngsters with basic football knowledge and trainings to start with, the Performance squad will have players receiving a bit harder training in accordance to compete with the best. Talking about numbers each squad will have, Firmin said,”We don’t have a fix number for selection. The Developmental squad has no limit but the performance squad might have 20-25 players in each age group.”

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When asked about tying up with Mumbai schools for these initiatives, Firmin added, “We have gone through schools from Juhu and Santa Cruz which have huge population with good chances but we don’t mind getting players from other places either”. When asked about the academy boys playing in lower division leagues, Fermin stated,”We will try out to play the performances squad in MDFA next year. But even now if a player is good enough we will give them the chance to play in our club SRS so that, they continue to have opportunities”

Although the academy cannot try out in I league age groups due to certain rules and procedures, Firmin stated that they will try that too, “we will try to get it affiliated from AIFF and try to field a team by next year but AIFF has their rules (Academy has to be minimum 2 years old) to field a team but we will still try and see what transpires”

Firmin D’souza is a member of MDFA and also the Head Coach of SRS sports