Indian Super league (ISl) football franchise Delhi Dynamos held open trials for children in the age group of 11 to 13 years here on Saturday. Football not being a popular sport in the northern part of the country, organisers thought it would be great if a couple of hundred kids would come for the trials. But they were stumped (in cricketing terms!) when they were forced to handle more than one thousand children, who turned up for the trials wearing their favourite football club jerseys.
And the children weren’t just just from Delhi. There were kids who came for the trials from neighbouring states of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana. Around 200 children will be shortlisted for the second round, who will then participate in the final round on 16th April. From the finals, top-20 will be picked up who will have a golden opportunity to learn the technical aspects of the game during a week long workshop under the guidance of experts from ISl. Similar process will be followed by every franchise of the ISl. Shortlisted kids will also get residential scholarships.
last year, Delhi Dynamos started a grassroot development program called the ‘Junior Dynamos’ which was an inter-school competition and was also the largest ever inter-school football tournament. More than 150 schools became part of the initiative. With this new initiative, the franchise is looking for kids who can represent India at the FIFA World Cup (U-17) in 2017.
“Through such initiatives we want to identify young football talent of Delhi and nurture, develop their game skills with professional training under experts,” Shakti Singh, Dyanmos assistant coach said.