Dream United dreams of achieving great things in Indian football

Bengaluru, July 26: There comes a point in everyone's life when you ask yourself 'where do we go from here?' Sharath Kamath, who runs a residential football academy in Bengaluru called Dream United Football Academy (and Rebels Football Academy as it was known for a while), reached that saturation point this summer. His trainees were becoming adults and as they graduated from the academy, they were forced to look out for options elsewhere in the Indian football scene.

Kamath's solution to retain the cream of his players was a simple one - bid for a professional club in the local division for about Rs 20 lakh and develop his players further. And that, in a giffy, is how Dream United FC landed at the Bangalore District Football Association's Super Division as one of the new entrants.

"Our journey started 10 years ago when I started coaching kids from the grassroots," Kamath says. "Major part of did not yield lot of fruit. A couple of years ago, I met Abhishek Jagan, who has worked in the Indian Super League (ISL) as an athletic director and physiotherapist. He structured a lot of things for me and showed me how things are done in the global scale. The first step was to build a residential structure for players as there's a dearth of 11-a-side grounds in the city and hostels for players, where they could stay together off the pitch. Over the last two years, we saw considerable development. We found that these players are good enough to play higher leagues. We have played the district and state leagues with partner clubs. But we did not find the right synergy with them and so we thought of buying a club on our own to help our players make the bigger leagues."

'Built by the players'

The BDFA has a four-tier structure with the Super Division being its premier division. Anyone can bid for a direct entry into the Super Division on payment of Rs 20 lakh to the association and for the 2018 season, there are about five teams hoping to be part of the league. Among them, Kickstart FC Karnataka and Dream United are the confirmed newbies.

"There has to be a progression for the players," Kamath added on what motivated him to bid for a Super Division team. "The next step after the Super Division will be the Second Division I-League . We, as an academy, meet most of the eligibility criteria set for a Second Division I-League team already. Now, it's all on these players to show the results on the pitch. We're not a club backed by investors. Players build and run this club. It's their platform and it's for them to build it further. If they compete and do well, they can take this forward."

'Scientific approach to training'

Ask Jigme Lama or Jeevith Gowda, couple of Dream United wards, what position they like to play in and the reply will puzzle you. "I can play in any position."

Prod them further that it's not five-a-side football, rather serious business of a 11v11 game and their reply remains the same - "Yeah, I know. I am a winger but I can play in any position."

One of the unique traits about the Dream United academy is that they train their players (barring the goalkeeper of course) to be comfortable in any outfield position.

"Indian players can compete with foreigners in most of the aspects - physicality, technical know-how and mental strength. But the real shortcoming is their ability to clearly understand the tactical part of the training. We have a scientific approach to programming which incorporates tactical elements to go in with the technical and physical elements," Kamath says. "We have a biomechanics wing within our team, handled by Badrinath Rao, who has trained several Olympians. We sat together and designed this programme and slowly, we have had players ready to play in different positions and formations. We've tried 3-5-2, 4-4-2 and 4-3-3. The cream of the lot here can play in 10 different positions. That's something we have focused on."

The work though isn't complete. Kamath will have to again tackle the question of "where do we go from here?" a few years from now and by then, his initial crop of players would have reached their peak.

Hopefully, his players will provide the answer on the pitch the next time.