Sixteen players from seven cities will leave for London July 21 to represent India in the Under-16 category at the 21st Arsenal International Soccer Festival (AISF).
The players have been chosen from a phased inter-school football tournament played across 15 cities including Kolkata, New Delhi, Goa, Gangtok, and Shillong, where over 7,000 budding talents representing more than 1,000 schools took part.
A pool of 30 boys selected from the tournament underwent a two week conditioning camp in the city as part of the talent hunt programme Arsenal Tata Tea Soccer Stars (ATTSS).
The players were trained under the expert guidance of former Iranian striker Jamshed Nassiri and Andrew Douglas, head of the Arsenal School of Soccer.
Of the 16, three each are from New Delhi, Chandigarh, Shillong and Gangtok, two from Bangalore and one each from Kozhikode and Bhubaneshwar. Gur Simat Singh from Chandigarh will captain the team.
Ironically, Kolkata, which is a known football-mad city, found no representation.
Young midfielder Abhiraj Vikram Singh said: "I am extremely happy and fortunate to be part of this team. Under this programme we got to learn many new techniques especially from (Andrew) Douglas sir. It’s an opportunity of a lifetime.”
Nassiri was all praise for the youngsters and said it was a great opportunity for them to showcase their skills in the soccer carnival and make it big in the game.
“I was pleasantly surprised by not only their standards of skill but also their mentality and attitude,” said Douglas.
Asked to comment on his club’s performance in the English Premier League (EPL) the former youth team player from Arsenal told IANS: “I don’t think the fortunes of the team are dipping. We have done reasonably well in the EPL and it will be a harsh to say that there is a big gap between us and the top teams.”
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