30 years ago, Socorro Vaz hung up his boots
after an illustrious career with Vasco Sports Club, Salcete and now defunct
club, Santos. From then on, he spent as much time focusing on imparting what he
had learnt to other upcoming players, training schools to optimise their
footballing potential and winning approximately 40 titles in the process.
However, as his sons, Joshua and Charlton, took to the pitch just as he did in
his youth, Socorro felt that if they put their collective heads together, they
could achieve great things. In doing so, they formed what they coined the Youth
Futsal Academy.
Speaking on the beginnings of the academy,
Socorro recalls, “I was one of three Goan participants selected by AIFF to
attend the Futsal Level 1 Coaching Course organised by the Asian Football
Confederation (AFC) in December 2011. After finishing the course, I wanted to
do something for Futsal in Goa. Hence, with the single purpose of putting into
practice what I had learnt, I started the Youth Futsal Academy in February of
2012.”
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However, it has been noted that there is
immense scope for growth in the sport at an early age, with parents pushing for
developmental programmes such as these. “The parents of some children that
attended schools in Margao had urged me to start a coaching programme after I
stopped coaching Manovikas school squad in 2007. This process continued for a
long time until I got down to it. We began with a strength of 22 students and
now have an average strength of 60 per month ranging up to 90,” states Socorro.
The academy does not discriminate between
its male and female students and it is a policy which has paid dividends, with
Somaaya Nadia Mukundan being the first player from the Youth Futsal Academy to
represent India at the AFC U-14 Girls Regional Championships in Nepal held in
late April of 2015.
Of course, one question that must indeed be
asked is why futsal, when it is the sport of football that has the attention of
Goa in a vise-like grip. Elucidating on the same, Socorro, who completed his
Futsal Level 1 License Course in 2011, points out, “We are focusing on futsal
as it builds on a lot of the skills which help footballers in the normal game
of football, once they migrate to that from.”
One facet that the academy runners feel is
lacking is in terms of ideology; not of his students, but sometimes that of the
parents. “The idea of success is varied, and while sport is looked at as sport,
it is not looked at as something greater. In the bigger leagues around the
world, sport as a career is looked at with dignity. Athletes are given their
due. In fact, many of them are specialist degree holders. Locally, it is always
looked at as a choice of either sport or education, when the reality is that
both can co-exist,” adds Socorro’s son Joshua, who has gone on to play for
Dempo in Goa and Vitória Guimarães SC in Portugal.
The academy has gone one to prove that
moulding children through sport is an art form, and a discipline, one that is
not to be taken lightly. Yet, at the same time, one can live to the fullest and
quite literally, have a ball. So why shouldn’t they?
