Sporting Clube de Goa added another feather in its cap by launching a football academy to improve quality of the game in the coastal state.
Announcing this at a press conference here, Peter Vaz, Patron of Sporting Clube de Goa said his endeavour was to improve the quality of football in the state by providing the necessary infrastructure and the know-how of the game through the coaching regimen.
The academy, Vaz's dream project, will be launched on August 16 to coincide with the 198th birth anniversary of St Don Bosco. The renovated football ground at Don Boscos here will be inaugurated on the same day.
Vaz said his I-league side, which is in its 15th year of foundation, has had a meteoric rise, advancing from Goa's 1st Division in 1999 to the top echelons of Indian football in a short span of four years and then staying there.
En route, the club has won many a laurel, like being Super Cup champions, two-time runners-up in the Federation Cup and runners-up of NFL once, he said.
In addition, SCG has won the Goa Professional League, Goa Governor's Cup, Taca Goa U-20 (twice) and Goa U-19 tournament besides being the first and only Goan Club to win the Junior I-League (U-19).
"All this has encouraged the club to keep striving for a professional set-up in the form of infrastructure, coaching professionals and best practices," Vaz said.
Scott O'Donnel, Technical Director-Academies, All India Football Federation, will launch the academy.
The academy will train budding footballers in age groups like U- 10, U-12, U-14, U-16, U-18 and U-20. It will have a coaching team built around Javier Fernandez of Spain.
He will be assisted by coaches Norbert Gonsalves, Ashwin Crasto, Francisco Raposo and Freddy Gomes and they will work under the supervision of Sporting's head coach Oscar Bruzon and seek to implement the SCG's Youth Development Plan.
"With Spain leading the world in football, and with the Spanish influence already present in the form of our head coach (Bruzon), we opted for the Spanish model," Vaz said.
Youth Development Plan is a quality-driven programme, which supports football education as well as regular studies with the best of coaches and curriculum which takes care of the players' medical needs and inculcates the value of fair play on and off the field, he added.
