Johan van Geijn opened his presentation to the gathering with a vehement rebuttal of a long-held notion. Although being built like a brick outhouse did have its advantages, physical smallness, van Geijn argued, was no excuse for mediocrity in Indian football. He offered the example of compatriot Wesley Sneijder. The Holland and Internazionale superstar stands only 5'7” in his shoes, “but he is one of the world's best players. Sneijder represents Dutch football in a way. Also look how much Japan and South Korea have progressed; they don't have physically imposing players. Sometimes, it's good to be small.”
Co-ordinator for the Royal Dutch Football Association's (KNVB) World Coaches programme, van Geijn was in town earlier this month to announce the project's arrival in India. It entails the establishment of a football academy for underprivileged children where, he said, the KNVB intended to adopt the same blueprint for success that had been used back home. “Our aim is to build the football pyramid here, starting at the smallest age group. You just need to start early. It is not that the talent does not exist.”
That blueprint was first drawn up after the Netherlands' failure to qualify for the 1982 World Cup. “We took action immediately,” van Geijn said. “It took us 10 years to get back into the reckoning.” It was subsequently revised in 2002, when the nation missed out on another World Cup. “We then came up with a master plan for youth football; and in the last 10 years, we've had a lot of success. We made it to the final of the World Cup (2010), although it's sad we couldn't get that star on the shirt.”
Post the changes, organized football now begins at the age of five, with junior leagues starting 13 upwards. In his own town of Baarn, van Geijn revealed, close to 1200 youths – out of an overall population of 24,000 – actively play. There are six fields devoted to the sport, with two training sessions and one match scheduled every week. Though this may sound regimented, emphasis on enjoying the sport, in a country that gave birth to Total Football, remains high, he insisted.
“Kids will not want to play if they're not having fun. Running is for athletes, football only for those who want to play with a ball. Operations in Bangalore too will be based on the same model, although not on the same scale. Nico Labohm, formerly a youth-team coach at Dutch club Feyenoord, will be in charge of the academy. “We will start with kids under nine, ten and eleven, and try to add one age group at the bottom every year,” he said. 40 children (under the age of 11) from the city's Murphy Town locality have, for now, been selected, with the numbers set to rise substantially by the time the academy is up and running, in June.
The chief focus of World Coaches' work, though, is not football in itself. The programme, already in operation in 12 countries, seeks to bring about all-round development in its wards. In Bangalore, the facility, to be set up by the Ozonegroup Football Academy in association with the KNVB, will come up in Whitefield. Local coaches will be trained to international standards; 2516 such coaches have been created across the world, the KNVB claims. “In the long run, the programme will become more and more sustainable with more Indian and fewer Dutch coaches,” van Geijn added. As part of the programme, the academy's student-athletes will receive life skills training, particularly in light of their background.
Coaches will address issues relating to crime, drug abuse, health, and sanitation. “We don't just want them to be coaches on the field but off it as well,” van Geijn said. “We want them to be role models.” S. Vasudevan, CMD, Ozonegroup, insisted that the programme's goal would always be greater than teaching football alone. “Their education, accommodation, nutrition etc. will all be taken care of,” he said. “This will provide an opportunity to children whose talent would otherwise have gone waste. It is a 10 to 20 year, long-term programme, and we will be very happy if, who knows, some of the kids go on to play for the National team.”
