Jamshedpur, Mar 23 : Newly-appointed Sesa Football Academy (SFA) coach, Sioulas Anastasios today said that his institute is planning to establish a Sesa Baby School to train young footballers in the age group of eight to 12 years.
“The basic purpose is to expand our base and the proposed Baby School will accommodate talented footballers of eight to 12 years age group,” Sioulas, who was appointed SFA technical director in February, said.
Having experience of 25 years in two continents, Sioulas was in the steel city to support his boys taking part in the ongoing 6th Under-20 I-league here.
The school, which will be situated in the SFA premises, is likely to be launched in June. However, the number of intakes is yet to be decided.
Sioulas expressed confidence that once inducted these boys will be fundamentally strong in three to four years time.
Asked whether these boys would undergo training under the guidance of the SFA experts, Sioulas, who had spells with top professional football clubs in Greece, Cyprus and Hungary including clubs such as Panathinaikos, told PTI that there were altogether 27 schools situated at two academies—at Sanquelim and Sirsaim.
He said the physical training instructors and the game teachers of these schools will be given training to take care of the boys, while the experts in Sesa Goa will make regular visits to oversee the progress.
To a query about the existing selection policy of cadets for SFA, he said, we pick talented boys in the age group of 14 to 16 years from areas around our two academies and nurture them at the Sesa academy.
Sioulas is now planning to tap young talents from the Under-14 and Under-16 matches across Goa and train them at the academy from this year. Talented footballers can be picked from outside Goa as well, he said.
Admitting the advantage of having two academies—both at Junior and Senior level in close proximity, Sioulas said his immediate focus will be on improving the physique of the players, besides education and discipline being the other priorities.
Claiming that Sesa Goa was the first football club to procure a valuable equipment to evaluate the physical position as well as performance of its players, Greek Coach said the equipment will be pressed into service from this year to evaluate the success rate of the players.
The evaluation will be done for both senior and junior team and successful performer would move into the senior group, he said, adding that most of professional football clubs in Europe have this facility.
SFA is contemplating to send its team for international exposure to either Qatar or Dubai. However, nothing has been finalised yet, he said.
