A TRIP TO REMEMBER FOR YOUNG RED CHAMPION STARS
A group of talented Thais has a fruitful learning experience at Leicester City academy, writes Ravipan Pavasuthipand
Thiti Boonchoen just lost a game against a Leicester City academy team on a chilly afternoon at the club’s training ground but the young Karen boy isn’t about to let anything dampen his spirits as he trudges off the pitch alongside his teammates.
After all, the soon-to-be 16-yearold student from Vachiralai school in Chiang Mai, in his first trip abroad, is living the dream of many youngsters back home. He is training and being coached at one of the top football clubs in England.
Thiti is one of the 25 talented Thai students aged between 12-15 from five schools — one each from the five regions of the country — who won the nationwide Red Champion football skills competition and were rewarded with a short training course at Leicester City academy.
For the seventh year running, AP Honda, in cooperation with Office of the Basic Education Commission, sponsored the programme which required participants to display and be judged on their juggling, dribbling, passing, finishing and heading skills.
“I was so happy after my school won the Red Champion competition. I knew that I will have a chance to train in England and that my hard work has paid off,” Thiti says.
“The training is much more intense here. The coaches focus on all the basic skills, the team system, positioning, attacking and defending... everything.”
A mention of his goal celebration moments earlier brought a huge grin on Thiti’s face. He says his favourite positions to play are winger and striker.
Thiti now lives and studies at Vachiralai due to the help of a teacher. He lost both of his parents when he was an eight-year-old Prathom 2 student.
“I started playing football when I was in Por [Prathom] 5 [about 11 years old],” Thiti adds.
“I know that I want to play football and after I lost my parents, the teacher helped me relocate to Chiang Mai and got me enrolled at Vachiralai.
“So to win the Red Champion project with my school and get to travel and train here is really great.”
For Natakorn Supapote, at 12 the youngest of the group, the experience at Leicester City academy has been exciting and memorable. Being the smallest player on the field is not a problem for the wide-eyed youngster and the determination shown on the pitch and his lively personality has also won over a lot of admirers.
“I’ve got to learn all the basic skills,” the Rajvinit Bangkhen student enthuses. “The coaches get us to train very hard on everything from passing the ball, pressing, reading the game and one on one.
“We’ve got to learn about fitness and nutrition as well... things we never do back home.
“The chance to be here and train is very hard to come by so I try to listen to what the coaches have to say and practise as hard as I can to improve and become a better player.”
Those words will certainly sit well with the man behind the project Suchart Arunsaengroj, vice-president of AP Honda.
“Our aim remains the same and that is to help develop young players, who really have a passion for the sport, to first get all the basics right because that is the basis of a good footballer. I think we’ve done a good job so far,” Suchart says.
“I remember when we first started this project seven years ago, the kids weren’t very good when it came to the basics like dribbling with both feet or making a pass.
“Now the difference is so vast and the kids are much much better.
“We try to help the coaches as well, so we get all the school coaches to learn as well as the kids so that they can go back to Thailand and try to coach the next generation of students and make them even better.”
While the youngsters will have a lot of memories to cherish and perhaps a few of them may even go on to have a career in football, the training stint has also left a lasting impression on Paul Cheney, who oversees the Leicester academy’s coaching programme for young players aged between 12 and 16.
“I was very impressed with the boys’ love of the game,” Cheney explains. “Here at Leicester City we firmly believe that working hard is a talent and this is what we’ve seen with the boys.
“We think it’s so important that they can work with the coaches, listen and play without fear. Because I don’t think they realise how good they could be.
“What we like about them is what we call ‘street footballers’. They are quite creative, expressive and are light on their feet.
“Sometimes in our country, we find our boys very rigid. It’s something we would want to keep, we try to get our boys to be like that so we try to arrange a programme to allow creativity.
“Thai boys are also very focused. They are very very focused... and humble. We’re really impressed with how willing they are to learn... even with the language barrier. They want to really understand what we’re trying to get across.”
All the creativity aside, Cheney believes the one area of the game where the Thai youngsters could improve is their understanding of the game.
“For me, it’s the tactical understanding. So perhaps they should play 11 versus 11 more often. To have an understanding of positional sense. That would be the biggest area they can improve on but an area that is more than coachable,” he continues.
“I think a lot of them have potential. They will make mistakes, but they will learn from those mistakes and go outside of their comfort zone. That’s what we teach our boys all the time.
“So that’s what they need to concentrate on when they go back home [is to] learn positional play, and play without fear, and try to be creative.
“A few of the boys that if they develop the right way could easily be good potential for Leicester City academy.”
Which is why, as the seventh season of the Red Champion project is wrapped up, AP Honda reveals they will assess their efforts and try come up with a new approach or format that will help push these youngsters to the next level.
“We have such a great support from Leicester City Football Club for this season,” Suchart says. “They really pay attention to all the boys individually and I think that shows that we [AP Honda and Leicester City] have the same goal.
“We hope to come up with new ways to help these kids develop even more and make the most of what they learn here.”