Hard work were the operative words for the day for the RFYC Selection Camp participants. Day two of the camp kicked off with early morning training sessions. The children were categorised by their age groups (2002, 2003 and 2004) for three different sessions conducted at DY Patil Stadium and Father Agnel ground. Children born in 2002 began their training session at 6am which went on until 8am at the Father Agnel ground (Artificial Pitch) in Vashi. The session for the 2003 batch was from 7am to 9am at the DY Patil Stadium in Nerul. The final training session in the morning was conducted from 9am to 11am at the DY Patil Stadium in Nerul. Piet Hubers, Technical Director of ISL’s Grassroots programme spoke about the quality levels of the chosen 200 participants following the morning sessions. “We started with warm up exercises in the morning and from the exercises itself, you could see the skill and technique of the players we have chosen for the camps,” he said. Following the gruelling sessions in the morning, the children headed back to their rooms at Beverly Park complex in Navi Mumbai to rest. A theory session was conducted in the afternoon as Hubers showed video clips of outstanding goals being scored in elite football competitions across the world to reinforce the learnings from the training sessions. The evening sessions began at 5pm and Hubers stressed on the importance of hard work as he gave the children a brief pep talk before commencing proceedings. He further illustrated the need for players to function as a unit and grow as individuals on the pitch. The evening sessions began with the 2003 batch training from 5pm to 7pm at the DY Patil Stadium. The 2004 batch trained from 6pm to 7pm at the Father Agnel ground (Natural Pitch), leaving the 2002 batch to train from 6pm to 8pm at the Father Agnel ground’s artificial pitch. Click here to view photos.
