Exactly. To echo ArsealFan's views. You would be surprised how that there is no big difference between kids at U16 levels. What happens after that age 14/15/16 is where the big development takes place, and that is when playing in a stronger league and with stronger and older opponents will help you develop.
The India under-17 team could prepare for the 2017 World Cup by playing in the Bundesliga youth league next season.
A proposal is likely to go from Praful Patel, the All India Football Federation (AIFF) president, to his counterpart Wolfgang Niersbach at DFB, the German national association soon. To this end, AIFF general secretary Kushal Das met Markus Weidner, head of coach education and international affairs at DFB, last week in Germany.
"We have been told to make a proposal," Das told HT over the phone from New Delhi on Tuesday.
That would be an outstanding achievement, if AIFF manage to get the team bound for the U17 World Cup into the under-17 Bundesliga. Certainly the performance and the result of the team during this tour would have been a strong endorsement that they can handle themselves at that level. However, there will surely be plenty of issues to take care of if such a proposal is to come to fruition? VISA for the players, agreement of the Bundesliga and ALL of the clubs that participate, not only in the top division of under-17 football in Germany, but also the second and regional teams, who will all surely question this. Then there is the issue of finding a "home" ground and training centre and a base for all the players and staff. Then there is the issue of finding foster families for the players to stay with during their time in Germany, and even then I don't know if kids will be allowed to stay without a legal guardian or a parent. Relocating a parent or legal guardian to Germany for a year will have other related issues such as VISA, finding work for the guardian, accommodation etc to be looked into. While this is an encouraging initiative, it seems one that is far-fetched in practice.
There definitely will be issues. Any tie-up or whatever with DFB applies to the footballing side. Regarding the acquisition of VISA (keep in mind if you play on a youth contract in Germany, you are essentially working in Germany, and that will have plenty of legal issues to overcome), living in Germany with a family or bringing along a guardian etc will have to be dealt with in accordance with the German laws and broadly with respect tot he European Union. These are issues which the EU and the German visa granting agency can supersede the DFB on. So, yes. certainly there will be issue.
Good post @ashindia . The point is whenever a country invests on a very small and fixed set of youth players, they are doomed. Another example is Harimau Muda, the Arrows like league team of Malaysian youths. Now where is Malaysian football today?
How many of our IMG-US trained boy are creating ripples? Arrows did a decent supply for I-League clubs but very few are going to be good enough at international level.
Investing on a small set of youth players is a gamble, which will pay only if you are too lucky. There is no linear progress from youth to senior level, and some kids develop early (or are overage) who will be beasts at youth level, get selected and invested upon. But that progress curve may not sustain due to many factors, one being biological limits. So they are not going to do anything at the senior level. While many late bloomers maybe be poor at youth level, who will do well in senior level. So, all we can do is develop a huge pool of youth players (youth leagues, clubs with proper academies - yes, utopian ideas in India) and hope that a small number of them does well in senior level.
Simply speaking, if 20% of players from youth level can make it big, then only 4 in a set of 20 players will come up (when you invest on a small set), but 20 in a set of 100 will come up (when you have a larger starting pool. ofcourse, this 20% thing is just my imagination but if we analyse data from last 10 years or so, we might get some %, which of course will depend on training. With better training you will have better %, but still I doubt it will even be 50%
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https://www.the-aiff.com/news-center-details.htm?id=6663
http://www.htsyndication.com/htsportal/article/INDIA-SEEK-TO-PLAY-IN-U-17-BUNDESLIGA/7782624
http://www.aseanfootball.org/v2/?p=5826