Six youth from Jammu and Kashmir recently attended a soccer training camp in Brazil following their selection by the International Sports Academy Trust (ISAT) for a training course provided by Syndicate of Professional Football Trainers of Sao Paulo (SITREFESP).

Before leaving for Brazil, they said it was a great opportunity for the youth of Kashmir.

“If we look at it through the medium of football, then it can be a turning point for us. The course is in a foreign country Brazil. It can be beneficial for us and for Kashmir.The upcoming players, who are starting from the grassroots level, will benefit a lot from it,” said Basharat Bashir, one of the players,Other than Bashir, Masood Maqbool, Abid Yaqoob, Muzamil Mahmood and Tahir Maqbool also made it to Brazil.

Among the players was Imran Bhatt, who was jailed earlier for stone pelting during anti-government protests in the valley. He saw it as an opportunity to make a new beginning and pursue his dream of playing football.

“Today, I want to state that I may have taken part in stone pelting at that time, but now I don’t relate to it anymore. Now, I shall start a new life altogether,” he said.

This transformation in the lives of these six youth was made possible because of Brazilian coach Juan Marcos Troia and his wife Priscilla who manage camps for more than 3000 Kashmiri boys and six major academies under the International Sports Academy Trust.
For the coach, it is important that the youth of Kashmir get a chance to inherit the football culture of South American countries like Brazil through training programmes.

“We are going to show them what is football in Brazil. We will take them to professional clubs like the Sao Paolo Football Club, which is one of the biggest in South America. So, they will go to see museums of football where they can see everything about football. So, we want them to take this football culture with them,” he said.

The coach believes there is world class football talent in the state,and all that the players need, is exposure at the international level.

CE Tyndale Biscoe, a British missionary who founded Srinagar’s historic Biscoe School in Kashmir,introduced football in Kashmir in 1890.

Over the years, football has become extremely popular in the state.