Producing future stars of football in the country is a dream that many dream of. The Pune Pioneers Football Club is among the many clubs or academies in India that are helping to build the platform for developing the next big talents for the nation. Their founder Ryan Shah’s passion has always been to train young players and develop them to create a career in the beautiful game. We at Chase Your Sports look at his club’s ambition of promoting local talents and creating a stage to perform at the highest level.
Shah is one of the few coaches to hold a UEFA B license in the country. With his club Pune Pioneers Football Club, he has won a total of 35 trophies in youth football and is running centres in eight locations around Pune. As the name goes, the club has truly been pioneering for players to make their dreams a reality. Not only in the city but also in the state of Maharashtra as a whole. Ryan talked about his intentions of starting the Pune Pioneers and the aspirations that the initiative brings with the success it has brought so far.
“I founded Pune Pioneers Football Club to cater to three beliefs - gender equality, promotion of local talent and promotion of young talent. The club is in its first year of playing in four district leagues - Pune, Thane, Palghar, Ratnagiri and our youth teams constantly achieve tremendous success at local youth tournaments. We strive to make the club a platform for female footballers to get the same experience and importance as male players and we would like to see more players from the state of Maharashtra make it to bigger teams. Our biggest success has been Khushahal Singh, who made his I-League 2nd Division debut as a 17-year-old for Mumbai City FC. Khushahal has been with me since he was 13. We have produced Sapna Rajpure who has gone to play in IWL with Lords FA Kochi and also at state and district levels.”
The determined coach shared a thorough insight into the development strategy of his club to bring the necessary results out of the athletes at a young age. The way it helps children learn the basics, get accustomed and grow with the game. It helps the players to be technically constructive and have more composure in their play.
“We as a club enjoy playing our children in small-sided format tournaments, like 6v6 because that allows our players more time on the ball, a key essential in technique development. We have travelled across Pune and Mumbai to various tournaments and achieved 1st place and 2nd place trophies. The number of games our children play has a direct impact on their comfort on the ball. We now aim to replicate similar success in 11v11, and our youth team coaches are currently working towards tactical development and understanding of the players.”
We also dove into Ryan Shah’s personal career and his love for the game. He told us about his motivation to make a career, especially on the managerial front, in the sport and his opinion being different to other coaches for taking the role. Starting a club also came from his aim of giving the right knowledge and training to the young talents.
“Just like any young child who has a deep interest in the sport, I had ambitions of making it professionally in the sport. Football was and is something I enjoy 24/7 and is truly a way of life. I was fortunate to play for a few reputed clubs in Mumbai and thereafter did not believe I had the ability to make a sustainable career for myself as a player. Coaching was a field I took interest in as a 15-year-old, in my quest to attain as much knowledge as I could in the sport.”
“Unlike a lot of coaches who get into coaching because it is the next best option after playing, I have a genuine passion for training young players towards tangible improvements within a professionally run organization. I am a firm believer that the best measure of success as a youth team coach is to count how many players have gone on to a bigger and better stage and how many of the players who have not made it, used the life skills of football to make a successful career for themselves in whichever field they choose.”
Shah says that football needs to grow in Pune and that the lack of professional clubs in top leagues of the country from the city is detrimental to creating the culture for the sport. Something which Mumbai is doing despite the challenges faced. He suggested everyone involved with the game and other organizations step up and spread the game around the region.
“Right now what Pune lacks is a club in the ISL or I-League and that is important because that serves as an inspiration for footballers in the city to aspire to become a professional player. I am saddened by the shutdown of FC Pune City, DSK Shivajians, Kalyani Bharat FC and Pune FC and hope that a corporate powerhouse decides to create a team of the city, for the city. Meanwhile, it would be phenomenal if football clubs like ours, the district associations and other similar organisations take a proactive approach to running clinics, camps and ad-hoc training sessions at schools, NGOs, residential societies etc, because that is where more interest can be generated.
In Mumbai, football has grown tremendously under the leadership of Aaditya Thackeray, with new clubs, new tournaments and new initiatives. Creating a footballing culture in a metropolitan city would always be a challenge. However, with Mumbai City's on-field achievements, I believe they are heading in the right direction. It is their on-field performance that is bringing Neymar's club to play in Maharashtra.”
While initiatives like Pune Pioneers Football Club, Kickstart in Bangalore, Classic Football Academy in Manipur or the more prominent ones like Mineva have developed talents that have gone on to play for the national teams or at the highest levels of Indian football, a structure and proper functioning at the grassroots level is still largely missing in the country. Being in the mix for development work, Ryan Shah tells his opinion about the places it has been lacking, if the new measures taken by AIFF going to change it and the top-to-bottom approach not being beneficial at all.
“Since you have mentioned Minerva, I would like to tell you that they are my biggest inspiration. They have shown every club in the country that you do not need to have the best budget or infrastructure to become a success. You need a burning desire to strive towards your goal. Since we are not primarily a football nation, we need to enhance participation at the grassroots level. This means we need to organize as many tournaments for every age group, wherein kids from different schools, academies, residential societies etc are all looking forward to playing a match on the weekend. They will then bring their friends and this will increase the number of participants.”
“Right now, I believe that as a country we are trying to change and professionalize things at the top, like academy accreditation criteria, club licensing criteria, coach education, baby leagues, ISL, IWL - however I believe the national federation should put tremendous pressure on the state associations to then pressurize the district associations to run as many tournaments as possible, and not just at club level but to involve school and friends circle teams too. This is when all the major plans will become fruitful.”
