The third edition of the Reliance Foundation Young Champs Club Scouting Festival continued at the Bidhannagar Municipal Ground, Central Park in Kolkata on Friday. The festival began at 8:30 am and saw youngsters turn up in large numbers to demonstrate their footballing ability and impress the on-looking coaches as they attempted to make the RFYC Final Selection Camp next month.The young hopefuls were scouted by nine coaches from Atlético de Kolkata’s grassroots development programme as well as Piet Hubers, technical director of grassroots development, and Mark Vaessen, head coach of the RFYC. Vaessen spoke highly of the competitiveness of the young trialists in Kolkata and opined that development supersedes winning or losing for the gifted youngsters at this stage.“Of course, we already selected some boys for young champs [from Kolkata], so I have a lot of experience with Kolkata boys. What I know from them is that they’re very passionate about football, what I also know is that it’s a region where losing is not in their dictionary, they hate it. I also try to explain to them that’s part of football. Winning, sometimes you have to draw, losing is also a part of football. Beyond that other things [he tells them] is about development. It’s not only about winning, it’s about getting better every day,” he said.The club scouting festival started with the aspiring talents’ technical skills being put to the test with them taking part in passing and receiving drills. The focus then shifted to their positional play with them being asked to go up against one another in teams of 7-v-3 and 6-v-4.The Atlético de Kolkata Scouting Festival eventually came to a close after the youngsters participated in a 7-a-side game, which drew the curtains on Day 2 of the festival in Kolkata. The Club Scouting Festival stays in the eastern side of India with Guwahati being the venue for NorthEast United FC’s scouting festival on Saturday.
