CHENNAI: It’s Day 4 of the Chennai Football Association’s Senior Division League and I-League outfit Chennai City FC are in action. Helming the team in the league is last year’s goalkeeping coach Sathish Kumar. As the players warm up, Mohammad Akbar Bin Abdul Nawas sits in the stands and watches them closely. The CFA Senior Division is not one of the new Chennai City coach’s responsibilities. Yet, as the teams march in for the game, Akbar signals to team owner Rohit Ramesh who is sitting nearby: “I’ll be on the bench.”
The I-League season may be half-an-year away from starting, but the Singaporean, along with Spaniard Jordi Vila — his assistant and the man in charge of the team’s youth development — are already scheming for next year. Their plans are so advanced that they already know when pre-season will start next year — July 5.
“We have already laid out a programme. Right now, we are scouting both local and foreign players. We will be going away after some time to scout for foreign players. Scouting will take us some one-and-a-half months. And on July 5, we will start pre-season,” Akbar says.
“It would nice if, by then, we have some idea when the league starts,” he laughs. Only a newcomer can be that optimistic about the I-League, but Akbar is no stranger to Indian football. He was coach of the Tampine Rovers team that faced Bengaluru FC in the AFC Cup. And he was also on board as a consultant for Chennai City’s final few matches of the I-League season, watching on as they beat Minerva Punjab FC in their final game. The I-League, he feels, is comparable to league football in the Philippines, the country where he last worked in, managing Global Cebu FC.
Akbar is also fully on board with the strategy that Chennai City have been pioneering in this country — developing young players and selling them on for a huge profit. He hopes to build up a structured grassroots programme over the next couple of months, something that will keep Chennai City with a steady supply of talented youngsters in the future.
“We will hold training camps, for U-13, U-15 boys over the summer,” he says. “We are planning a programme where we can tie up with schools and increase the profile of the club. We will do whatever we can to make sure we develop the next crop of players.
“Obviously over the past two seasons, we have sold two players we developed for a healthy profit. And I am sure we can find more talented youngsters. But it is not just a question of finding them. We have to mix these players with experienced foreigners so that they can improve, both while training and while playing competitive football.”
vishnu.prasad@newindianexpress.com