Madras FC officially inaugurated its youth residential academy in Mahabalipuram on Saturday. The 23-acre campus is home to state-of-the-art soccer fields, accommodation and learning facilities, and an indoor swimming pool.
There are three football pitches – artificial (synthetic), natural and hybrid. The natural grass pitch is 1.5 times the size of a normal football pitch and is used for training and practice.
Girish Mathrubootham, founder of Madras FC, stressed that the idea of having a larger natural grass pitch for training and practice came from Jeremy Fishbein – the reasoning being that a larger ground can be divided into parts and used accordingly as natural grass with use wears off sufficient time for resuscitation or recovery. Jeremy was the head coach of the men’s soccer team at the University of New Mexico.
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The hybrid field is a combination of artificial and natural grass and has the USGA base, which helps with rapid drainage, according to CKM Dhananjai, the club’s director of sport and governance.
Dhananjai said hybrid pitches will be used at Tottenham Hotspur FC’s academy. India received their first hybrid pitch in Goa at Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium for FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup 2022.
The academy offers their wards the ideal platform to get used to the different types of soccer fields.
Dhananjai is co-founder of the sports analysis company Sports Mechanics. He has been the data coach of the three Indian cricket teams that have won the ICC World Championships (T20 World Cup 2007, Cricket World Cup 2011 and Champions Trophy 2013) and now leads the data and performance analysis of Indian Premier League (IPL) team Mumbai native american
The hybrid field is equipped with floodlights suitable for broadcasting and has a grandstand with 500 seats.
Girish said artificial intelligence (AI) cameras will be used to send video snippets to the video lab for analysis and performance boosting.
A nationwide scouting program was conducted and 2,416 boys were selected. The top 100 of them were invited to a 7-day strict camp in Chennai, and 50 were shortlisted. These 50 boys will form the first group of the academy.
Abhishek Yadav, former Deputy Secretary General of the AIFF and former captain of the Indian football team, is the club’s CEO. Shanmugam Venkatesh, former captain and former assistant coach of the Indian football team and current assistant coach of East Bengal FC, is the club’s Technical Director of Football. dr CN Narayana is the Director of Education and Life Skills at the Academy.
