Chambers, as mentioned to www.the-aiff.com, is looking forward to "a good exchange of football knowledge" from the scouting course which is being attended by 28 coaches from across the country.

 

"We need to start at the very bottom as there lies the foundation. It's on them (the participants) how much information they can gather and they can exercise in future. They need to understand the structure of scouting and they'll find the difference. It'll be a good exchange of football knowledge here," Chambers felt.

 

Savio Medeira, Head, Coach's Education, AIFF who is also present alongside Chambers, cited the importance of holding the scouting course for the current crop of coaches.

 

"Scouting courses were long overdue in India. We do have a scouting portal but we did not have any formal course before. Hence, we decided to go for it. It will help in our coach education courses to impart knowledge to the coaches on this subject in more detail," Medeira stated.

 

He further added, "To improve the level of competitions and the overall standard, we need to focus on scouting more. It will help the scouts to understand the finer details of talent identification, which is the base for scouting."

 

Mariano Dias, Head of Youth Development, AIFF, on the other hand, highlighted the importance of scouts for a successful team and described the decisive role of a scout.

 

"Scouts carry immense importance for a successful team. They need to scout according to the coach's requirements. They have to understand which player is being sought by the coach and they will need to act accordingly. Good scouts will be able to identify better players and eventually, they'll be groomed by the coaches. At the end of the day, it will help Indian football to grow," he said.

 

Rajat Guha, the goalkeeping coach of Indian women's national team and one of the participants of the course, also reiterated the same and endorsed the idea of hosting the course which will, in turn, help them hone their "view and knowledge of talent identification and scouting."

"This course will broaden our view and knowledge of talent identification and scouting. We can profile the players in a more specific way for long term development. It will help us assess our requirements and to let the players realise what is needed from them specifically," stated Guha.

 

"All of the participants will leave the course with different level of knowledge but they'll have a structural idea of scouting. As they progress over the months, we'll see the real difference in terms of scouting," Chambers rounded off.