The reputed former manager also met with the heads of a select group of football academies from across the country.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Welcoming Wenger, the AIFF President said, \u201cWe are so very honoured and privileged to host and welcome Mr. Wenger. His experience in football needs no introduction or explanation. I can just hope and pray that he continues to be involved with India\u2019s Talent Development Scheme project.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have been discussing this project for nearly three months now. Mr. Wenger\u2019s visit to India and his experience and support from FIFA, I am sure will make this project a huge success.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wenger said, \u201cI would say I was always fascinated by India. My target is to improve football in the world. And it is impossible that a country like India, 1.4 billion, is not on the football world map.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe you have huge assets, fantastic qualities that make me very optimistic about what you can do here. It is absolutely fantastic to have that opportunity. And with my team, we are really highly motivated to help this country develop in the game. I\u2019m convinced that it\u2019s possible in the very short term.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n
Arsene Wenger addressing the heads of a select group of football academies from across the country during his visit
\n| Photo Credit:
\nSPECIAL ARRANGEMENT\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\nArsene Wenger addressing the heads of a select group of football academies from across the country during his visit
\n| Photo Credit:
\nSPECIAL ARRANGEMENT\n<\/p>\n
Explaining how a well-oriented talent development scheme can change the face of the game in a country, citing the example of Japan in the 1990s, Wenger said, \u201cFootball is a technical sport. We have to equip the players from five to 15 with the best possible capacity to be technically at the top. That means, basically, to make it simple, is to make the ball his friend. The rest can be developed later. And this is absolutely vital.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, this is where we have to start and that\u2019s where we want to help people to make young players technically perfect. The start of our programme is to identify the talent and then put the best talents together,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Speaking on India\u2019s potential aspirations and goals, Wenger said, \u201cSo imagine the potential that is here if we work well. And my main target here is to convince people that there is a gold mine here but at the moment it is not completely explored, exploited and encouraged.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nComments\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Wenger and his team from the FIFA Talent Development Scheme are currently on a three-day visit to India in connection with the AIFF-FIFA academy to be inaugurated in Bhubaneswar on Tuesday, November 21.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":9042,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football-sport-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baysidesports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baysidesports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baysidesports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baysidesports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/baysidesports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baysidesports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baysidesports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baysidesports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baysidesports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}