Last Tuesday we went to the Nehru Jawaharlal stadium. It is a 60,000 seat arena,
built in 1982 and renovated for the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Except for a few football enthusiasts and some Indian FA members ,
The stadium was empty. I had a strong sense of curiosity to see the atmosphere of this architectural piece of art when its in full capacity, maybe next time.
During the game we could observe some athletes who started their training session on the athletic track. Fabian, my colleague and personal coach at the gym, and I, could not help but start discussing the differences between the physical attributes of the national Indian athletes, and world renown elite athletes. India is definitely surprising us on every level.
That sunny day we witnessed a 2-0 win of the U17 national team over SAI Delhi, a local team. Nicolai
Adam, their German coach, is preparing the youth selection for the 2017 U17 World Cup hosted in India.
Knowing that one of the national player is a former player of IYSA, the association I work with, just
increases my interest for this match.
It would be pretentious to judge them on only one game without knowing the exact level of others countries. What I saw allows me to say that the general technical level of these kids is really good. They will probably want to give a strong impression to their local fans next year and they will have to cope with such a pressure. After having coached some kids of the same age group and comparing with what I saw during this game. I can affirm that they need some work on the tactical aspect of the game, particularly in defense. They have a year before they face organized European teams, and creative South American ones. Im looking forward to seeing how they do in 2017…