German soccer scouts in hills

Player Manish Subba with talent Hunters Nicolai Adam and Felix Hansvencl and Kaushik Moulik in Darjeeling

VIVEK CHHETRI, 07 Dec 2018, Darjeeling: Eintracht Frankfurt has opened an Indian Football Centre in Germany to explore talent and brand the club and Bundesliga in India in an indication of the growing interest of European clubs in the country.

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The club is currently placed fifth in Bundesliga, the top-tier football league in the country, and is only a point less than Bayern Munich.

The initiative started from Darjeeling with the help of police and the German club has decided to partner with the Calcutta-based Football Next Foundation in India.

This is the first initiative of the 119-year old Eintracht Frankfurt in India.

Nicolai Adam, head of international sports project, and Felix Hansvencl, head of international partnership at Eintracht Frankfurt, arrived in Darjeeling on Thursday along with Kaushik Moulik, founder of the Football Next Foundation to scout for 20 players who will be taken to Germany for training in spring next year.

Adam was also the head coach of the India under-17 football team till February 2017.

"We have an internationlising concept called building bridges and I know there is a lot of talent in India. We had put up a very good and (From left) Player Manish Subba with talent hunters Nicolai Adam and Felix Hansvencl and Kaushik Moulik in Darjeeling on Thursday.

competitive (India U-17) team," Adam said.

The Indian Football Centre will cater not just to Indians but also tap talent from the Indian diaspora spread across the world, said Moulik.

The German club has put in place a three-phase plan.

" The first step was Manish (Subba) going there and having a look. Then we pick 20 best players, take them to Germany in spring 2019, form a group and work with them step by step. Building their experience and putting all this together, we create an Indian Football Centre," Hansvencl said.

According to the scout, India has been a target market for the past three to four years now. "We were waiting for the right initiative and project and then we met Kaushik Maulik," said Hansvencl.

The initiative started with Darjeeling police sending Manish Subba --adjudged the man-of-the-series in a police-organised tourna- ment in the hill town -- to Germany for a week last month.

The police then started a talent hunt involving 2,000 students below 12. A group of 20 will be selected from this pool of players by the two visiting German scouts.

Adam said he would be in Darjeeling for four days with the aim of spotting talent, irrespective of age. The club is looking to set up its centres in six to seven cities in India.