Grass roots is not a numbers game,it's understanding moral policing in sports

 Some youngsters in Anjuna displayed amazing talent

Last weekend was spent in Anjuna watching a football final of under-16 school boy’s .The atmosphere was electric. Mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters were all there. The villagers were there too. When the ball was directed towards goal, there were cheers. In many ways, it looked  like a mini ISL was at play in a  village without the reliance frills. The feeling was romantic away from the glare of the media.

The evening  was not about the style of football played. It was about the talent on display and there was quite a bit of it. The young boys could shoot. The passing was inherent. They could position themselves for the ball and they could shoot intelligently. Skill was evident.

As the referee blew the final whistle, the topic was not about the winners or losers. It was about the talent on display. Unfortunately, there were no scouts for the match. That is where the conversation veered long after the prizes were distributed and the triumphed and defeated trooped off home.

There is lot of talk about grass roots today. Somehow, grass roots will not be understood until we learn to embrace all aspects of grass roots. The main being scouting. More importantly, moral policing. Honest people are needed if we want the game to grow. This is exactly what we lack.

Moral policing, in other words, is about honesty-needing honest people. Because, unless we have honest people, the talented will not succeed. They will be trampled by the less talented or even those not at all talented and in this way football will always stay behind. We will then begin to understand why India cannot defeat Nepal.

Tournaments for children are good. They are essential. The more, the merrier. Somehow, this has not gone into the brain width of many. The Higher Secondary School League was started last year by the Directorate of Sports and Youth Affairs (DSYA). Many people applauded the initiative. Most importantly, it was appreciated by the higher secondary students who found it to be a window to not play but perform.

For those of us who followed the HSS League, there was plenty to watch, appreciate and even imbibe. Some of the boys and girls could have surely been somewhere in this football world had their potential not only been documented but harnessed properly. Nothing really came of it because once again there were no scouts present for any of the matches played around in Goa. Unfortunately, that shame continues even now.

To make matters worse, the HSS league –as it was called last year- has been cancelled this year by the present DSYA director. The excuses were lame, reaching the point of filth. What is good for sport cannot be condoned on flimsy grounds whetted by flimsier people. The league was for the HSS students and if they were happy the league should have stayed.

There have been many people in Goa who have pretended to love football. Actually they do not love the sport for the physical or intellectual thrill it provides. They are in it because they look at football as a platform to grow themselves in society. Some people have tried this hard and have been kicked out of the game equally hard. In short, every dog has his day.

 We can have not one but even forty grass roots centres. We may have four thousand or even five thousand children in our programmes (GFDC inflates its numbers in the hope of impressing Manohar Parrikar). Numbers do not really matter. What matters is – do we have the scouts to differentiate the chaff from the sheaf?

No. Goa does not. Something has to be done to rectify this anomaly. Or else, we will be running in circles, spending government money and finishing this football experiment as a political circus.

Actually, football is entwined in political circles in Goa. Let us discuss this later.

Coming back to scouts, I think Goa is capable of having quite a few good scouts. Severino is a name that comes to mind immediately. Severino has been training many teams in Goa. In fact he has been coaching quite a few teams successfully. But, more importantly he has been through these years been silently scouting talent and supplying them to many teams. He is the feeder of players to teams lacking funds. The boys he supplies do not add up as numbers. They play good entertaining football. Most are players spotted by Severino.

Goa needs more Severino’s. People like him need to be respected. He may be hardly known in Goa but he could well have been a star talent scout abroad. This is our sad story. We look yonder when actually we have it within us. We can pay a foreigner easily but shrug when it comes to paying our own.

This is the difference and this difference can be changed only by us.