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For a week every July, the Swedish city of Gothenburg is overrun with football teams . This year, according to the Gothia Cup’s official website, 37,200 players representing 1,625 teams from 80 countries will descend upon 110 playing fields in Gothenburg from July 15-21. The list of names that have featured in this tournament includes an 11-year-old Andrea Pirlo in the 1990 edition and, five years later, a 13-year-old Xabi Alonso.
This year’s edition may also feature a legend in the making. And he might well be from Pune. A team representing the SKF Academy has been a regular part of the Gothia Cup since 2005, when the SKF India factory in Chinchwad set up an in-house sports academy as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).
“Government schools have a resource crunch, which shouldn’t be a reason for children not to have access to good sports infrastructure. We’ve been going to the PCMC schools and selecting children for our boys’ football and cricket teams and what we call our Chak De girls’ hockey team,” says Shishir Joshipura, managing director, SKF India. Taking the football team to the Gothia Cup, Joshipura says, is more about exposure than winning or losing.
Coach Rajendra Panhalkar, who played for Maharashtra in the 1984 Santosh Trophy, has also coached a number of school teams in the past. Coaching at the SKF academy, he says, has been a different ball game. “At school level, the kids come with a bit of skill. I just have to assign positions and work on their physical fitness,” he says. “Here, most of these kids come with no knowledge of football.”
Despite this, Panhalkar’s coaching has had an impact. The academy’s first batch, which trained there from 2005 to 2010, include a handful of footballers who have shown promise. Right winger Abhijit Dhavre and goalkeeper Tohid Shaikh have played for PDFA league teams while striker Vikas Zanje is part of Pune FC’s under-17 team.
Zanje says the experience at the 2007 Gothia Cup played an important role in his footballing development. “There were 16-17 matches happening at the same time in this huge area. You learn so much just seeing those teams and their playing styles,” he says.
Each time he’s taken his team to Sweden, Panhalkar has learned something new and brought about changes to his coaching techniques. “I realised was that our players needed more stamina,” he says. “I’ve been placing more emphasis on physical fitness. Since most of the grounds in Gothenburg are astro-turf, the ball tends to zip around. I tell the players how to keep that in mind while passing. To really get up to the level of the best teams, we’ll need to train seven days a week. Right now, except during summer, we only get the ground for three days.”
Source: Express India
