The Sunday News
Ngqwele Dube, Sports Correspondent
TALENT identification and development is one of the building blocks seen as essential to achieving success in any sporting field and Eagles Sports Academy is adding to the field of institutions grooming future sports persons.
The academy began operating last weekend with a football training session for 25 young players at Busters Sports Club and has set its sights on going a notch higher and exposing their protégés to the international arena at young ages.
One of the football coaches at the academy, Rodwell Khumalo said they are looking to giving international exposure to footballers at a younger age to ensure they open up wider avenues for going abroad to further their careers at an early age.
He said they also believe there is need to start training footballers at a tender age hence they will be targeting players starting from four years.
The academy has former Highlanders captain, Dazzy Kapenya as the head coach and they already have an enrolment of over 30 youngsters.
Other coaches at the academy include Hanani Ndebele, Khumalo and Tony Mpariwa while Noel Kaseke will be joining them upon return from his Dubai base.
Personnel handling the administration aspect of the academy are Johnson Mtupha and Mwedzi Ziva.
Mpariwa said they intend holding international tours in the near future with the aim of giving their players a chance to experience the latest coaching trends and an opportunity to earn scholarships.
“I know the trend is for players to aim to go abroad once they are in the prime of their careers, playing topflight local football but we want to assist them move when they are younger and be exposed to the latest training methods and be able to learn from the best.
“We will be teaching all ball control techniques from a younger age so that as they grow you only need to teach them to tactical and positional play,” he said.
While the main training sessions is being held on weekends, there are one-on-one sessions during the week with players who want personal attention coming during the week.
Mpariwa said with schools closing they would also be introducing mid-week sessions.
Khumalo said focus would be ensuring young players acquire skills rather than being thrown into competitive games without being taken through the requisite drills and skills leaving only talented players to shine.
“We are charging $5 a session at the moment but we are hoping to attract sponsorship and reduce the costs.
“As an academy our emphasis will be on development rather than results on the field of play,” he said, adding they would be expanding in the future to include other sporting disciplines.
