“We want to be the grassroots leader in India, but getting funds is a constant struggle” – Forca Goa Foundation’s Nathaniel Da Costa on the Little Gaurs League’s success and obstacles

The Little Gaurs League (LGL), the flagship program of FC Goa’s sister concern, the Forca Goa Foundation, is now in full swing. Although founded in 2017, the tournament is in its third edition as it was suspended for the past two years due to the COVID-19 onslaught.

The current edition of the LGL commenced on March 5 in north Goa’s Mapusa town. In a post-pandemic milieu where all AIFF-affiliated Golden Baby Leagues have been postponed indefinitely, the resumption of the LGL has brought several boys and girls back to the football pitch, and allowed them to play their hearts out.

This year, the LGL has witnessed participation by 91 teams and 744 children across four age groups viz. U-6, U-8, U-10 and U-12. In the short span of time, the league has thrown up many remarkable stories that epitomize social upliftment and gender equality. Yet, despite these positives, lack of funds and bureaucratic rigmarole are major obstacles to the smooth running of the project.

In a recent chat with Sportskeeda, Forca Goa Foundation’s senior manager Nathaniel Da Costa spoke about the organization’s vision, female representation in the LGL, their expansion plans, and the need to emulate the European model of grassroots development in India.

The LGL organizing team with Nathaniel Da Costa (second from left). Image: Forca Goa Foundation

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Q: This is the third edition of the Little Gaurs League. What kind of response have you been getting over the years, especially this year as the tournament has resumed after the COVID-19 pandemic?

Nathaniel: We had only 36 teams in the first edition, but now we have 91 teams. It’s still less than what we had in the previous edition i.e. 110 teams. We wanted to have 120 teams this year. We were supposed to start in January, but the third wave of COVID hit us at that time.

It was a big blow to us. So, even when we started in March, a lot of schools were not willing to participate because the schools had just reopened. Hopefully, the next time we organize the tournament in October-November this year, we’ll hit the number we’re looking at.

Q: Could you give us an overview of Forca Goa Foundation's vision?

Nathaniel: The Foundation is a not-for-profit organization that focuses on community development through football. Basically, we follow the AIFF’s Golden Baby League format. The last time we organized the Little Gaurs League in 2019, we were the third biggest league in the country in terms of numbers. The AIFF even recognized the Little Gaurs League as one of the best managed and best organized leagues in the country.

The idea behind the league is to create opportunities for children to play organized, regular football over a considerable period of time in a fun and safe environment. In Goa, there are many tournaments for school children, but these are all knockout tournaments. So, if a school doesn’t have a good team or a child is unwell, they’ll only get two to three matches. With the Little Gaurs League, the idea is to have 27 matches per team every season. This season, we have 18 matches per team. Next season, we would like to have at least 27 matches per team.

In a nutshell, we want to have as many matches as possible for the children so that they can come and play on a weekly basis. Even if they haven’t been playing football, the opportunity to develop and grow is immense. We’ve already seen many success stories with the kids growing in confidence. At the start of the league, the difference in quality of the teams was huge, but now it's more even.

Q: The Forca Goa Foundation also organizes regular workshops on nutrition and mental health. How important are these aspects to budding footballers in today’s hyper-competitive world?

Nathaniel: Most of the residents of Goa are football fans, so we want to use this powerful medium to develop the community. We need to see the needs of the community. For example, in Goa, we have a huge garbage problem. That’s one of the things we’re aiming to tackle. We have a campaign called 'Tackle Trash Together' where we teach children about waste management and segregation.

Another key issue is mental health. We’re lucky to partner with a really good mental health organization in Goa called Sangath. People from Sangath come and deliver sessions to our coaches to help them understand what it means to have good mental health, how to allow children to grow up in a positive environment without putting unnecessary stress, and who they should reach out to if they see stress and anxiety levels in children.

The third aspect we’re working on is nutrition. In Goa, children don’t have the right balance in their diet. We have nutritionists on board who talk to the kids, their parents and coaches, and teach them the basics of nutrition like what you should eat and avoid before and after a match.

We’ve supplemented these programs with messages from our first-team players. They come and talk to the children about what they are eating and what the kids should eat. For example, we've had [Mohamed] Ali and Brandon [Fernandes] coming in and a few days ago, Glan Martins paid a visit. Children, after all, need heroes to look up to and emulate (smiles).

Q: Suppose a child starts from the U-6 category and plays 27 matches per year, so by the time he turns 12, he’ll play 162 matches. Is the number enough?

Nathaniel: We have plans of scaling it up. Our technical director Derrick Pereira attended a conference in Mumbai where one of Borussia Dortmund’s coaches was present. He informed us that by the time a child turns 12 in Germany, he would’ve played around 400 matches! That was five years ago. That’s when it struck us that this is the level children in Europe have.

Here in Goa, a child would’ve played only 10 competitive matches by the time he's 12 years old. Goa has a lot of training centers where children train regularly, but they didn’t have a platform to show that training and execute it in a match situation before the advent of the Little Gaurs League. That makes a huge difference.

Q: In how many years’ time do you expect the Little Gaurs League to become a robust supply line to FC Goa’s first team?

Nathaniel: We’ve already seen a remarkable change. While the Little Gaurs League in its current format is only three years old, we were doing a league for an older age group called the Junior Gaurs League.

We initially organized the league for U-12 and U-14 level boys, but we gradually realized that we needed to reach out to even younger children. In fact, our [FC Goa’s] current U-16 captain Micky Dias, who played against the junior teams of Manchester United and Chelsea in the Next Gen Mumbai Cup in 2020, has come through this system.

We also have another nine-year-old boy who was recently selected for FC Goa’s U-13 team. He started off at the U-6 level before graduating to the U-8 and U-10 categories in quick time. We want more such boys, maybe twenty to thirty of them, to emerge from this system. The pandemic has halted our progress.

Q: What is the scope for young female footballers in the Little Gaurs League?

Nathaniel: Although you think a lot of girls in Goa play football, it has been quite challenging to get them into football over the past couple of years. Even at the Goa Pro League level, there are only four or five female teams participating, whereas in the Little Gaurs League, we have an exclusive U-12 girls program with nine teams participating.

The U-6, U-8 and U-10 categories have a mixed league where both boys and girls can participate. Besides having these structures in place, we also talk to academies, schools, PT teachers and principals to see how we can bring more girls into the game.

We’re working with the Goa Football Association (GFA) to develop more female coaches. We’re also doing a lot of research to assess why girls are not taking up the game and it’s mainly because of the poor infrastructure. For example, the grounds don’t have toilet and changing room facilities. So now we have a 'Field of Dreams' project where we’re looking to get funding by making those changes to the ground. We’re going to the grounds, investing in them, and building toilets and changing room facilities to ensure that these places are safe for girls.

We’re also working on a coach development program to ensure that 30 percent of all participants are women. We’re trying to figure out how we can get them into the system. A couple of years ago, we were one of the few organizations to have five female coaches. They’ve moved on due to the pandemic, but we’re looking to get them back so that the girls feel safer.

Q: Are you planning to collaborate with any academy going forward?

Nathaniel: We certainly want to collaborate. We’re currently in talks with academies in Kerala and Maharashtra to take the Little Gaurs League to these states. We don’t just to have a Goa-centric league. We want to take the initiative outside Goa and run the league in at least three states by next season. Our biggest advantage is that we have an organized structure and know how to run an executive league with a minimum budget.

Q: Where do you want to see the Little Gaurs League after ten years?

Nathaniel: One of the key things I’m already working on is making the league sustainable and community-driven. Suppose I’m running a league in a place in South Goa called Navelim. Eventually, I want to step out and let the participating teams run the league themselves. We aim to build a strong sense of community so that businesses in and around the place can invest in and support the league. It will allow me to move and spread the league to other regions. This is a mission that the FC Goa president [Akshay Tandon] shares as well.

We’re already working with the GFA and the local clubs to see how we can achieve that goal together. We don’t want people to say that this is only FC Goa's project. This is a community-oriented project and everybody should be a part of it. You have to come over and see how we function. We have over 150 parents coming on each match day to support their children. You won’t believe the passion they show at this level. It’s incredible! We want that to grow.

It might still be a dream, but 10 years down the line, we want each and every child of Goa to participate in the Little Gaurs League. Right now we only have three centers, but we want to set up at least ten centers across the state. The Forca Goa Foundation’s objective is not to develop grassroots just for the state, but to be the grassroots development leader in the country. Yes, there are a lot of gaps to be filled, but we hope to carry this model to other states.

Q: What are the major challenges that you’re currently facing?

Nathaniel: The biggest challenge for grassroots football in India is funding. If anybody gets the funding, they can achieve their goals effectively. The struggle is to constantly get funds to hire coaches, hire grounds and buy equipment. At present, we only charge ₹400 per child, but some people still can’t afford it. Eventually, we want this to be free so that the parents don’t have to pay anything at all.

We’ve been lucky this year to get funding from TATA Motors. We hope the association continues and big brands come in to develop our grassroots program. We also want to get hyper-local so that local businesses can come in as well. They don’t have to donate big amounts. They can support one child, one team, or the coaches.

In terms of governing bodies, the situation is gradually improving. We get a lot of cooperation from the GFA and the general secretary is a huge supporter of what we do. We also get ample support from the AIFF as Deepak Nayak, who heads the Golden Baby Leagues across India, always looks out for opportunities to help us secure funding.

We need more support from the development and bureaucratic bodies.