BHUBANESWAR: Newly-appointed technical director of Indian Football team Isac Doru is full of praise for the sports facilities in Odisha. Both Kalinga Stadium and Abhinav Bindra Targeting Performance Centre, according to him, are top notch.
Doru was on a week’s visit to the State recently to assess the ongoing U-16 and U-19 National camps here at Kalinga Stadium and available facilities.
After attending the camps at Kalinga Stadium, he lauded Odisha government for investing heavily to develop sports like hockey, football, archery and athletics. “The infrastructure in Kalinga Stadium is of international standards.
The Abhinav Bindra Targeting Performance Centre is the best in India and may be among the top 20 sports science centre of the World. We need to take advantage of it for development of our players,” he said.
He also felt that the FIFA U-17 Women’s Football 2020, which India will host, would provide a boost to the growth of women football in the country. “Odisha has produced many national and international women footballers.
I interacted with some of these players and the coach of the State team at the women football development meeting in Cuttack on June 30,” he said.
According to Doru, there is no dearth of talents in India. “We should pick these talents at the golden age of six-10 years and with quality coaching, they can become the future of Indian football,” he said.
Fifty-six-year-old Romanian footballer Doru had replaced Savio Medeira as the technical director of Indian Football in April.