It is easy to be excited by Shankar Sampingiraj’s potential. Anyone who has watched the young Bengaluru FC midfielder in action would have been impressed with his poise, his ball-control, and his dynamism on the pitch. The 20-year-old was a revelation for the club last season, and it became evident his performances had not gone unnoticed when he was drafted in by the Indian Super League side Kerala Blasters for a sum of Rs.10 lakh. Last month, BFC sent Shankar on a three-week training stint to the Italian third-tier club Unione Sportiva Cremonese. The Kolar-born footballer returned recently, brimming with enthusiasm after his time with the Lega Pro Prima Divisione side. “I learnt a lot by training with them,” he says. “They train with great importance attached to the technical side of the game, like pressing and the first touch. They play a similar formation to that of BFC so I learned more on what position to take up and when, how to receive and distribute the ball, and things like that.” Shankar adds: “Some of the players at the club had played in Serie A and Serie B (the top two tiers of Italian football) and the coaching staff were good. The standards were really high there even in training. They have all facilities and have all levels of youth development, from the U-13 to U-21 age-groups.” News of the trip came as something of a surprise to Shankar.
“It was not expected. One day, I got a message from Mandar (Tamhane, the Chief Technical Officer at BFC) that I would be going to Italy. It came out of the blue. There were some complications initially with the ISL training but BFC and Kerala Blasters talked to each other and sorted things out,” he reveals.
Shankar's time in Italy was made more memorable by an encounter with the former Argentina striker Hernan Crespo, who now coaches the Serie B side Modena. “I went to the stadium when the club played Bologna in a friendly. I wasn’t eligible to play because it was a registered friendly, but I went along to watch. We won 2-0 which was great because Bologna is a Serie B side.
Afterwards, I met Crespo and had a little chat with him. I remember him from his days at Chelsea and Inter and the World Cups. It was amazing to meet him. We just spoke about football in general.”
Language proved a bit of a barrier during Shankar’s training stint. “The only problem there was the language,” he recalls. “I was quite friendly with the captain. He spoke a little bit of English so he would talk to me. The people were all very nice. The team and the media manager made sure that everything was fine. We went out often and I also watched a match between Verona and Roma. It was a different experience to see people turn up in such large numbers to support their local team. It is something you don’t find much in India.”
Food, however, was less of an issue. “I had mostly pasta and pizza. I didn’t like pasta much before but now I have grown to really like it.” Shankar's focus will now shift to the ten-week-long ISL, which begins on October 3. “I am looking forward to it; this is my first year,” he says. “I just got to the Kerala Blasters training camp. I have met all the players and I'm really excited. I think we can have a good tournament this year.”
Shankar understands the value of his Italian sojourn, though. “I am lucky to be able to say that I trained with a club in Italy,” he says. “The players and coach there said that I had to learn well and take it back with me. I've learnt a lot more about being a professional, taking care of myself and behaving on and off the field.”
