A scientist and a football coach
A lot is riding on 38-year-old Chetan Mishra. He is redefining the concept that one must play a sport at a decent level to become a successful coach. In modern football, a coach is more of a programmer who allocates experts to crucial aspects of a project. An engineering/economics graduate from Georgia Tech, Atlanta, US, Chetan, born in Odisha, was driven by his passion to amalgamate science with football. He is running FootballLink that manages the Zinc Football academy in Zawar.
Chetan has worked extensively on the successful girls soccer programme in the US and returned to India in 2010. A Football Association coach, he has developed Delhi Police’s Yuva programme for football and has introduced the F-Cube technology that measures developmental parameters in budding footballers.
At Zawar, Chetan is assisted by a posse of coaches – Indian and from Spain. Julio Manuel Segret Mondelo, a UEFA A-License coach from Spain, is a grassroots specialist while the Indian experience comes from Rohit Parashar (former chief coach at NIS, Patiala), Suresh Kataria (a former SAI stalwart) and Ashwani Kumar (a well known talent scout from Haryana). “It’s a challenge for sure. Without a proper database, it is impossible to measure growth and the good thing is that the kids are quite tech savvy. That helps in improving mentally,” explained Chetan.