Need enough competitive international matches to build U-17 World Cup team – Rob Baan Interview

Photo Credit: AIFF Media

Having won the hosting rights of the 2017 FIFA Under-17 World Cup, India have their task cut out to not only get the infrastructure ready but also prepare a competitive team. AIFF technical director Rob Baan will be entrusted with the task of drawing a roadmap for the preparations and Sportskeeda caught up with the Dutchman to get an insight.

Here are excerpts from the interview.

How much do you think hosting the Under-17 World Cup will contribute to the development of Indian football?

It will very much depend on all stakeholders who will have to contribute to make this World Cup successful. It needs to be successful in relation not only to the required results on the field, but also outside the field. In this regard all participating states have to take responsibility for infrastructure, talent identification, youth competition, coach education etc.

Being the hosts, India need to build a competitive team. Will it be possible to achieve that in a little more than three years?

We started to identify the best available talents a year back and these talents are presently training in our Regional Academy in Goa. The boys train twice a day and play at least one match a week. However to make this team competitive a lot of action has to be taken for the coming three years. We need to make sure that we have selected the best available talent in this age group born on or after 01-01-2000 and offer them also the best possible preparation with exposure trips to various parts of the world where they can compete in tournaments with teams from South America, North America, Europe, Africa and Asia.

What will be the key factors behind preparing a team for this tournament?

One of the most important factors will be to play enough (international) competitive matches. The lack of infrastructure and the lack of competition in most of our states makes it very difficult to find good competitive matches for the same age group in India. In these quality matches players will adapt to various systems, tactics, higher tempo and above that get mentally prepared.

Besides the academies, are youth I-Leagues (u-14,u-16) also necessary?

As I just have mentioned above it will help a lot if all I-League clubs are taking their responsibility and start their own academy with various age groups starting from 12-14, 14-16 and 16 – 19 years old. If we can organise regular national tournaments with these club academy teams it will help to play good matches and possibly to identify new talents. I would like to mention the youth development structure of Pune FC as a very good example. As we all know next year all I-League clubs must have an Academy for these age groups otherwise they will not get their license and the AIFF will be very strict on that.

Photo Credit: AIFF Media

Having worked with Indian football for more than two years now and attended many youth tournaments, do you feel state associations will take their youth teams more seriously now that there is the chance of one of their own playing in the World Cup?

We experienced in these last two years that some states have already started to organise themselves better. States like Mizoram, Maharasthra, Kerala and Goa now have a full time CEO and also a full time development officer. But every participating state in this World Cup must have a full time CEO, with administrative staff and at least one or two full time technical staff members, such as a technical director and a development officer. Off course this can only happen with the help of the AIFF.

Many people are saying getting the under-17 World Cup is the turning point for Indian football, but is it crucially the turning point for youth development in India?

It can only be a turning point when all stakeholders (and that means mainly the State Associations and the I-League clubs) are being responsible and start to organise themselves in a professional way. But the Government must play a very important role in this. If I only look in my own country you can see that any village, any small town, in any part of Holland is supported by the government or the local municipality to build infrastructure for sports and football as part of this. So there are indoor facilities and outdoor facilities for all sports. As the governments and municipalities have learned that you can only have a well-developed mind in a well-developed body.