COACHING WITH PASSION

It was the abject surrender of the Chuli Bagrian village team in a local tournament that motivated Vinod Loyal, then a student of Class 11, to start coaching part-time. It has become a lot more than that and not only did his village benefit but also girls from Sadalpur, 13km away. “We had no coaching facility in our village, so we would lose in almost every tournament. After finishing Class 10 when I took admission in Hisar (2003), I joined a football training centre and what I used to learn in the morning, I began teaching the village boys in the evening. In two years, we were among the top sub-junior teams in the state,” said Vinod. “Most of the players from the first batch have got government jobs in the sports quota but I got international success on moving to

Sadalpur after taking a job in a private school (in 2012). Till date, around a dozen of my students have donned the national jersey,” said Vinod, 36.

When Vinod began coaching in Sadalpur, only boys would come. “Forget about the girls playing, there was no sports culture in the village. Now, the girls’ success is a matter of pride for the entire village. After four girls from the village represented India for the first time in 2016, the panachyat gave each

~1 lakh by asking community members to contribute,” said Vinod who returned to the village last year.

But most of the Sadalpur girls preferred training under Vinod, who makes his living from agriculture, and joined the Vinod Football Academy. “Most of the girls are from very poor families so, forget about charging fees, I have to seek help from people to arrange for free education, kits and football boots. But it is their hard work on the pitch that keeps me going,” he said.