Football or soccer is the most-watched and followed sport in the world. Football in India has a massive following, just as cricket does. Though a football career in India is not considered the right career choice, the situation is slowly changing. Domestically, tournaments like ISL have boosted football’s image and popularity in India. It is no longer sports children play in their localities and isn’t restricted to Mohunbagan FC anymore.

Teams like Bengaluru FC have a massive following, and they also have a registration and selection process that is quite accessible. Having a football career in India is no longer a distant dream. Though the sport isn’t as popular as cricket on a national level, locally, football is a loved and cherished sport. Tournaments like I-League and ISL make football a viable career option for young aspiring footballers passionate about the sport.

Best Football Academy in India

Though India has never really managed to breakthrough in the FIFA World Cup, many Indians dream of the day when India can achieve this. Passionate lovers of football have established many academies and schools to train young children. These trained players play in tournaments like ISL and I-League. Some of the best football academies in India are as follows:

• Premier Indian Football Academy

Established by Nirvan Shah and Anjali Shah in 2002. Both have featured prominently in Mumbai’s football scene. The school has conducted camps abroad and provides excellent exposure.

• Tata Football Academy

JRD Tata established the Academy to pay tribute to his father’s love and commitment to sports. The Academy provides intensive training along with all-round development. The Academy looks after every need of its young trainees.

• Bengaluru FC Soccer Schools

Established in 2014, it was mainly led by the I-League winning team. BFC schools undertake extraordinary efforts to ensure the young trainees can learn from the best and reach professional levels in the future.

• Baichung Bhutia Football Schools

The great Indian footballer Baichung Bhutia established these schools to ensure young football enthusiasts in India could receive proper training. It is a premier institute for kids who want to pursue football professionally. The trainees are provided with match exposure, career guidance, and adequate studies. 

• The Sports School

The Sports School was established in 2019 with a vision to integrate education and sports for young aspirants and help them become professional athletes. World-famous mentors such as Rohan Bopanna, Robin Uthappa, and Pullela Gopichand train students in The Sports School regularly. 

Football at The Sports School

The Sports School Football Academy is a collaboration with Bengaluru FC. The program aims to provide world-class training to aspiring footballers. The coaches have licenses from AFC and AIFF. The trainees’ evaluation is undertaken by the Youth Academy Coaches and Head of Youth Development of the Bengaluru FC.

There are regular friendly and competitive matches held. Talented students get a chance to play with BFC Youth Academy teams. Bengaluru FC  is one of the India’s most established football clubs, and this partnership makes The Sports School one of the best football academies in Bangalore.

Professional football training at The Sports School is provided along with expertise in sports science. Students are taught about strength and conditioning, nutrition, and injury prevention. The turf itself is certified by FIFA Quality Pro. The artificial turf measures 108m x 68m and goes through strict lab testing and FIFA certification criteria.

The Sports School Football Program

The training provided to students includes the following criteria – position training, team practice, advanced skills, game analysis, ground matches, tournaments, mental conditioning, strength, and stamina enhancement. 

The head coach of The Sports School football program is Hason Khaleeli. Hason is a license holder of AFC. He has trained at the Football Association of Ireland. Over the past decade, Hason has worked with several grassroots programs to train players in Ireland.

Hason had been working with Bengaluru FC since its birth in 2013. He was the lead coach for U10 and U14, and he was Assistant Coach at the U16 and U19 levels. He became the head coach of the Football Academy of Bangalore in 2016, which gave this program an edge over many others in Bangalore. It is undoubtedly one of the best football academies in Bangalore.

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About ISL:-

The Indian Super League (ISL) is the highest level of a Professional Football League in India founded in October 2013. The league involves 11 teams with each season usually running from November to March. During the league stage of the competition, each club/team plays 20 games against the others in an all-play-all tournament (or round-robin style). The top four teams at the end of the league stage qualify for the play-offs. The season then winds up with the ISL Final to discover the Champion. The league has been officially known as the Hero Indian Super League since its initiation as Hero MotoCorp signed a sponsorship agreement with ISL. Its organizing committee are AIFF (All India Football Federation), FSDL (Football Sports Development Limited) and Star Sports. Initially, the league started with 8 teams, then expanded to 10 teams in 2017-18 and currently it has 11 teams competing against each other. 

Competition Format:-

The league stage follows a double round-robin format (all-play-all), with each club playing against others twice, once at their home stadium and once at their opponents’ stadium, for a total of 18 matches each. Teams earn 3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, and 0 points for a loss. Teams are ranked by total points, with the highest-ranked club at the end of the league stage being awarded the ISL League Winners Shield and the top 4 ranked teams advancing to the finals.

Clubs:-

CLUB		LOCATION	HOME GROUND	HEAD COACH	OWNERS
	ATK Mohun Bagan	Kolkata, West Bengal	Salt Lake Stadium	Aptonia Lopez	Sourabh Ganguly, Sanjiv Goenka
	Bengaluru FC	Bangalore, Karnataka	Sree Kanteerava Stadium	Carles Cuadrat	JSW Group
	Chennaiyin FC	Chennai, Tamil Nadu	Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium (Chennai)	Csaba Laszlo	Abhishek Bachchan, MS Dhoni
	SC East Bengal	Kolkata, West Bengal	Salt Lake Stadium	Robbie Fowler	Shree Cement
	FC Goa	Margao, Goa	Fatorda Stadium	Juan Ferrando	Virat Kohli, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala
	Hyderabad FC	Hyderabad, Telangana	G.M.C Balayogi Stadium	Manuel Marquez	Rana Daggubati
	Jamshedpur FC	Jamshedpur, Jharkhand	JRD Tata Sports Complex	Owen Coyle	Tata Steel
	Kerala Blasters FC	Kochi, Kerala	Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium (Kochi)	Kibu Vicuna	Blasters Sports Ventures Pvt. Ltd.
	Mumbai City FC	Mumbai, Maharashtra	Mumbai Football Arena	Sergio Lobera	Ranbir Kapoor
	Northeast United FC	Guwahati, Assam	Indira Gandhi Athletic Stadium	Gerard Nus	John Abraham
	Odisha FC	Bhubaneswar, Odisha	Kalinga Stadium	Stuart Baxter	GMS Inc.

ISL Record holders:-

• Most titles as a Coach:- Antonio Lopez Habas
• Most points in a season:- 40, Bengaluru FC
• Most wins till date:- 51, FC Goa
• Most draws in total:- 35, Kerala Blasters
• Most goals in total:- FC Goa
• Most goal by an Indian in Indian Super League goals:- Sunil Chettri, Bengaluru FC
• Biggest win:- 7-0, FC Goa vs. Mumbai City FC

League Champions:-

• 2014 :- ATK Mohun Bagan
• 2015 :- Chennaiyin FC
• 2016 :- ATK Mohun Bagan
• 2017-18 :- Chennaiyin FC
• 2018-19 :- Bengaluru FC
• 2019-20 :- ATK Mohun Bagan
• 2020-21:- ?

ATK Mohun Bagan holds the most ISL trophies with 3, defeating Chennaiyin FC in the 2019–20 final.

Click below to know about Football program @ The Sports School by Bengaluru FC

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The trend of Football clubs came to the country soon, starting with Calcutta FC in 1872. Shortly after that, Calcutta became the hub of Indian Football. Tournaments like Gladstone Cup, Trades Cup, and Cooch Behar Cup were also started around this time. The Durand Cup and IFA Shield were both launched in the late nineteenth century.

Even though the IFA (Indian Football Association) was established in 1893, it did not have a single Indian on the board until the 1930s. It took almost a decade for the current All India Football Federation (formed in 1937) to get affiliated with FIFA. Indian players insisted on playing barefoot when other nations played in boots. 

Following the 1948 Olympics, FIFA imposed a rule banning barefoot play. A popular myth states that Indians refused to play because they were not allowed to play barefoot is not entirely true, and was just a story cover up the disastrous decision of the AIFF. 

During what is considered as the Golden Phase of Indian football, 1951 to 1962, India won several tournaments such as Asian Games 1951 (Gold Medal). In 1956, after agreeing to play with boots, India reached the semi-final in Melbourne Olympics football, becoming the first Asian country. In 1962, India again picked up the football gold medal in the Asian Games.

Ever since the 2011 Asian Cup, the All India Football Federation has been working very hard on Indian Football. For instance, they allowed former coach Bob Houghton coach the Indian side in the 2012 AFC Challenge Cup qualifiers. After going first in there AFC Challenge Cup group, Bob Houghton was sacked and replaced by Wim Koevermans. Meanwhile, the India national under-23 football team won the first round of the 2012 Olympics qualifiers against Myanmar but were knocked out by Qatar. 

India played their next official matches against the United Arab Emirates in the 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifiers, which India lost on aggregate 5–2.

In 2014, India hosted the first-ever Unity World Cup in Goa, Hyderabad, and Bangalore. India participated for the first time in FIFA U-17 World Cup as hosts in the 2017 edition of the tournament. This was the first time that a team representing India participated in the finals of a FIFA-organised world tournament. India was placed in Group A along with the U.S.A, Ghana, and Columbia. 

On 6 October 2017, India played their first-ever match in FIFA U-17 World Cup history in front of 47,000 people against the United States. But unfortunately, India lost the game by 3–0. India played their second match against Colombia. In 82nd minute Jeakson Singh became the first Indian goal scorer in the finals of any FIFA organized tournaments. For the third match of the group stage, India faced Ghana where they went down to lose 4–0, finishing bottom of the group A. 

Recently in 2018, Indian Football has reached another level by defeating Argentina U20 2–1 in 2018 Cotif Cup and Iraq U16, the defending champions of AFC U-16 Championship by 1–0.

The Sports School strives to provide our students with a curriculum covering all strands of the sport, with the practical focus being the development of performance skills in Football. The Sports School Football Academy with Bengaluru FC offers comprehensive programs for Professional Football Coaching with experienced Coaches licensed by AFC and AIFF. Bengaluru FC’s Youth Development program helps players of each age group, develop and play competitive Football.

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The Sports School Football Academy with BFC Soccer Schools provides aspiring footballers with world-class training to reach the next level. At The Sports School campus, we offer a Professional Football Coaching Program with experienced coaches licensed by AFC and AIFF. The monitoring and evaluation of the student’s performance are done by the Head of Youth Development and BFC Youth Academy coaches.

Competitive and friendly match opportunities on a regular basis are arranged with quality opponents, and talented students also get a chance to play at the BFC Youth Academy teams. The Bengaluru FC Grassroots / Youth Development program is the first step in a young aspiring footballer’s career. Students will also be provided with Sports Science expertise (Strength & Conditioning, Nutrition, and Injury Prevention concepts).

Here are some highlights of the program:

• Coaches Licensed by the AIFF or AFC, following the footsteps of their first club – Bengaluru FC
• Youth Development program for players of each age group
• At each level, each child gets the opportunity to play competitive games in the BFC Soccer Schools Super League
• Students get a chance to be child mascots at Bengaluru FC’s Indian Super League and AFC Cup games
• Regular interaction with professional footballers, including Bengaluru FC captain Sunil Chhetri and goalkeeper Gurpreet Singh Sandhu

Specific details of the programs are mentioned below: 

Beginner (Age group- U12/12): 

• Fun Activities
• Basic Skills
• Kicks
• Running with Ball

Intermediate (Age group- U15/16):

• Position Training
• Advanced Skills
• Game Analysis
• Team Practice
• Mini Ground Matches
• Mental Conditioning
• Tournaments

Advanced (Age group- U15/16):

• Strength & Stamina
• Advanced Skills
• Mental Conditioning
• Tournaments

To provide unique learning opportunities to our students for leveling up their skills in football and to develop and enhance their knowledge in the sport, we have partnered with Bengaluru Football Club. 

Bengaluru Football Club forayed into the sport and has been contributing to putting India on the footballing world map. Bengaluru Football Club came into the scene with a successful debut season in which the team won the I-League in the 2013-14 season. Bengaluru FC also represented India in Asian competition, first in the playoff round of the AFC Champions League and then in the AFC Cup, becoming the first-ever Indian club to make it to the final of the AFC Cup. Bengaluru FC has drawn praise for bringing a new sense of professionalism to Indian football, including the use of on-field equipment meant to help player fitness. 

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