Subroto Cup 2006

Indian football is fortunate to have a tournament like the Subroto Cup, school football tournament. A vast land like ours needs to have a pan-Indian tournament, where the young, budding stars of the future can be spotted, nurtured and developed. This years Subroto Cup was even more exciting due to the presence of quite a few teams from neighbouring countries.
With the Nepalese teams in both the Under-14 and Under-17 categories emerging victorious, those that run football in India have their work cut out for them.

To me the following were the lessons or issues that emerged from the Subroto Cup 2006:

1.Chandigarh represents the future of Indian football

By going down only by a solitary goal to the eventual winners, the Chandigarh Football Academy (CFA) boys as part of the Government Model School, Chandigarh put up the best show when it came to flying the Indian flag in the tournament.
It is not unthinkable therefore that many of the future stars of Indian football will be emerging from the CFA. And perhaps it is not surprising that the seeds for both, the Subroto Cup and the CFA were laid by men from the armed forces. The Indian football administration cannot take any of the credit.
If the CFA keeps up the potential that they displayed with respect to talent spotting and development, the centre of gravity of football may well shift northwards in India.

2. Residential Academies are the way forward

The CFA has been able to produce results because it has gone in for quality over quantity.
In it senior batch, it has focused on 23 boys, that were picked in the year 2000. Most of the boys will be 18 years old between 2008 and 2009. In its junior batch, it has focused on 21 boys, who were admitted in 2004. Most of the boys from the junior batch would be turning 18 in 2011.
By placing the boys in a residential academy, the CFA has been able to develop teams from a pool of less than 25 and end up as losers only to the eventual winners.
The message is clear. To hope to produce quality players without a residential academy, where all aspects of diet, exercise in addition to training can be monitored, is wishful thinking.

3. Addressing the transition years

It will be interesting to see how the first batch of the CFA fare when they graduate. This year Churchill Brothers has done well in the Goa Pro League due to the influx of youngsters, especially from the Tata Football Academy and a smart foreign coach. Could the CFA boys also do the same with another team or will they just end up warning the benches for a big Calcutta club.
To a great extent, the answer to that will tell us the state of Indian football in 2 to 3 years from now. These boys need to be handled with care and nurtured along.
While the CFA graduates may be too young and raw at that time to be in the reckoning for the national squad which will be focusing on the World Cup qualifiers in 2009, they can certainly make their way to some of India's junior teams and be prepared for the day the national squad comes calling.

Either way, the future of Indian football looks a whole lot brighter than the present.