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Two years after roping in foreign coach, Greco, Mohun Bagan-SAIL Football Academy (MBSFA) is trying to bring in a foreign coach for its residential football school in Durgapur, West Bengal.
The academy is in talks with renowned football coach Marcos Antonio Falopa. The 65-year old Brazilian has 40 years of experience. Falopa has travelled all over the world and has worked in almost 100 countries so far. The Brazilian, who was the assistant coach of Brazilian senior national team in 1988, has been working as FIFA instructor since the beginning of 80s. Currently Falopa is with the Italian national football academy, where he has been for the last three years after he finished his engagement as the national Myanmar senior national coach in 2009.
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According to a MBSFA executive, “We have been talking to Falopa for last couple of months. He has verbally agreed to join our football school. Still we cannot be sure unless the written agreement is made. Even if Mr Falopa joins our academy he will stay here in Durgapur for three months and then go back and will come after two weeks for the next three month period.” It has been learnt that MBSFA wants Falopa for one year.
Though it has a title sponsor, they have been in search of a separate sponsor for its foreign coach. As the academy is yet to accumulate funds for its foreign coach, the academy top brass wanted take things slowly. But the academy’s recent performance in the under-20 national football league at Jamshedpur, where the team finished fourth, seems to have compelled the academy executives to speed things up a notch.
Presently the academy has 40 students in the under-19 group, who are trained by local ‘A’ licensed coach Shantanu Bose. The selection trial for the academy’s another under-16 group started on April 16.
Incidentally, there is good news for the academy as SAIL has decided to give its Nehru Stadium ground on lease to the academy. One of the academy’s executive committee members said, “It will benefit us a lot. Our boys will also be staying in the stadium complex and the stadium has an equipped infrastructure comprising gymnasium, swimming pool, conference room for taking theoretical classes of the students. So even if Mr Falopa joins us he should be happy to have these facilities.”
But MBSFA does not seem to be content with the hand-over of the stadium ground for next 25 years. It is planning to install an artificial turf at the Nehru Stadium. The MBSFA has decided to send representatives with a presentation to Zurich in June to try and convince FIFA’s executives, who are in the Goal Project, about the requirement of the astro-turf at the Nehru Stadium.
