Colm Toal: Coaches need to differentiate between winning and development

Colm Joseph Toal, the AIFF's Head Coach Youth Development and the man who has over the last few years given India's Youth system some structure, expressed his views on the current state of National Youth Teams.

In Colm's presentation which was appreciated by all, Toal encouraged all the participants to "express their opinions".

"We need to talk and question each other. Coaching is all about opinion and nothing is correct and definite. The more the opinion, the more the ideation," Colm defined.

"It's imperative to understand the difference between winning and development," Colm further added. "At the Youth Development Programme, winning doesn't matter; but development does. You all as Coaches need to differentiate it. It's necessary to strike the balance and marry both," he maintained.

Earlier in the day, Pradip Dutta, AIFF Fitness Coach, struck a balance on the Physical Preparation of Young Players. An AFC Elite Panel Instructor, Dutta emphasized on the recovery of players, as he spoke at length about the dominant energy systems, ergo genesis, energy suppliers, limiting factors and training objectives. He also highlighted the comparison between early specialization and multilateral development and also on duration of exercises.

Significantly enough, he brought forward injury prevention techniques and a periodization model for long term strength training.

Scott O'Donell, the Technical Director of the AIFF Regional and Elite Academies, dished out the Plan for future AIFF Regional and Elite Academies. "We need to create a Nationwide scouting network to ensure we produce future World Class Players."

The practical session for the day was conducted by AIFF Technical Director Rob Baan as he demonstrated various skill training techniques at Father Agnel's Training Ground.


The list of participants

Godfrey Pereira, Noushad Moosa, Kundan Chandran, Shaikh Arshad Hussain, Abdul Azim Siddique, Nirvan Shah, Aqueel Ansari, Khalid Jamil, Raghuvir Pravin Khanolkar, Augusto D'Silva, Faruk Ahmed, Mohammed Yusuf Ansari (all Maharashtra); Birbal Singh, Ekendra Singh, Bitan Singh (all Manipur); R. Thyagraj, Stanley Rozario, Thomas Joseph, John Kenneth Raj, Mastan Ahmed, P. Muralidharan (all Karnataka), Prasanta Banerjee, Gautam Ghosh (both West Bengal), Parthasarathy Thulasi, Syed Sabir Pasha, C.M. Ranjith (all Tamil Nadu); S. Geevarghese, C.J. Charles, P.M. Saji, Biby Thomas, Satheevan Balan, Feroz Sheriff, Narayana Menon (all Kerala); William Koso (Nagaland); Maymol Rocky, Marcus Anthony Pachecho, Francisco Bruto da Costa, Jude Barreto, Savio Medeira, Mario Aguiar (all Goa), Tarun Roy, Anadi Baruah (both Delhi); Sajid Yusuf, Hilal Parray (both J&K); Surinder Singh (Chandigarh)

Coaches from Clubs/Academies: Tanumoy Basu (Pailan Arrows); Bino George (Chirag United Kerala), Arun Pratap (Chirag United Kerala Academy); Deepak (Kerala FA Academy); Sujay Sharma, Arata Izumi (both Pune FC); Ahmed Aslam Khan (SAI, Bangalore); Mathew D'Costa, Gavin Araujo (both Dempo); Augustine Antao, Joaquim Crasto (both Salgaocar); Suren Chhetri, Pranai Subba (both United Sikkim FC); Richard Hood (Tata Football Academy); Manoj Kumar (SEPT, Calicut); Pradyuman Reddy (Shillong Lajong FC); Sunil Chaudhury, Cetano Pinho (both ONGC); Ajit Braich (Canada)