The Sports-India Community

Some news on youth football:

Tata Academy getting closer to tie up deal, great news for our youth stars:

http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstor ... sid=243051

Also very nice story of 2 boys from fishing village making the national teams. Just shows again football is the people's game, cheap, easy to play, in any condition. Football will be no. 1 in India in the near future:

http://cities.expressindia.com/archivef ... 2007-06-26

Also to my knowledge, there are 5 Indian boys currently or soon to be recieving scholarship with overseas clubs:

Joshua Vaz - Victoria de Guimaraes (Portugal)
Advait Dandekar - Bristol Rovers FC (England)
Kean Lewis - Leicester City FC (England)
Karan Diwan - Glasgow Rangers (Scotland)
Chiraag Paul - Birmingham City (England)

Recent small news on Vaz: http://www.navhindtimes.com/articles.ph ... _ID=061538
News on Lewis and Diwan:http://in.news.yahoo.com/070528/48/6gbl9.html

Chiraag Paul, there is no news on his current location, although the fact he has trained at 2 top clubs, Birmingham and Sao Paolo, and considering his age (18-19) and position (striker), makes him usueful for the new NFL and maybe even national team. Do the AIFF know of his whereabouts? You only hope he is still playing high level football.

Currently the future looks good if these boys can make it in the big league, they will be there for India's future youth national teams.

If anyone has any extra info...please share

murli as always thanks for those excellent links...very interesting...

Terrific news and very positive sign for our youth players.

Thanks for the links.

Jaydeep.

No problem guys....

Another bright star, Darren Caldeira:

http://www.westsideplus.com/fullStory.a ... 6200731610

This young player went to Valencia FC in Spain 2 years ago for some training, came back to play with Mahindra United (but not much in the 1st side), and now has joined new proffessional club Essel Group. He is 19-20 years old and with his experience he can surely do well. At his age he is too old to join an academy, so he must do well in the NFL div. 2, then try break into the India u-23 team, and then look to go abroad again, maybe using an agent.

I guess the whole idea is that Bob Houghton and Colin Toal have some options with these players and if they are not aware of them or are relying on others for selection then lets hope they are reading this site...Henry Menezes, Essel FC manager, must have signed him for a reason

Maybe 2 more Goan players to join Joshua Vaz in Portugal?

http://www.navhindtimes.com/articles.ph ... _ID=071337
According to this article these two will soon join Vittoria Guimares:

Branco Cardozo, TFA player, also India u-20 player
http://www.the-afc.com/english/competit ... ND-005.jpg

Milagres Gonsalves, Goa u-21 player
http://www.hinduonnet.com/tss/tss3023/s ... 803300.htm

Great news for these players...
These players are both strikers/attackers and can one day replace Bhutia

branco cardozo is actually really good he was praised when he was on the youth team by a bunch of people, hes an attacking amf, hope he can break national ranks soon.

Another great news, Paul Soares, a midfielder from Goa will join a Belgian 2md division club academy. He is part of the India u-16 team..

http://www.navhindtimes.com/articles.ph ... _ID=071517

So another Goan youth player going abroad, it is interesting that for youth development, Goa and Mumbai are leading India, even if our biggest clubs are based in Kolkata. Tata Academy will sign a foreign partnership soon also. I am sure the talent is there in Bengal they only need to get some sponsorship and some modern thinking. If they can do it in Mumbai why not in Kolkata? Chandigarh Academy is also investing in youth football

So 16 yrs old Evans Thomas from Ernakulam, Kerala has won the 'WHERE'S THE NEXT' Nike football contest and now get opportunity to train for a week with the FC Barcelona coaches, from August 27 to September 4.

Evans Thomas wins FC Barcelona training

How often have I told everybody here that Indian football will not improve till somebody really goes down to Kerala and takes a look?

[Also, does anybody remember my post a ocuple of years back about sports-india starting a little scheme asking Indian youngsters to post their videos, so that somebody could scout.  None of you even commented onmy idea then.. I need to find that long post]

Go Evan Thomas!!

Jay

stupid nike though, they didnt post the actual videos online so the rest of us could look....they should do that.  does anyone know if its up somewhere...?

This is great news indeed.

-pm

i found it on youtube ... I hope this vedio of the same guy.

evans thomas

Jaydeep.

jaydeep....thanks!  this guy looks like he has skills...and he has flair...hopefully he makes something of himself...!

Why is he being discovered so late? In any other country, talented kids are playing for a club time age 16. He also seems to have decent size compared to the usual suspects on our national teams.

he's 16 and as tall as Bhutia...thats not bad....not that bhutia is a giant...i think he's like 5'7 or something...