u/SERIVUBSEV

Reducing wage bill and salary inflation is the biggest thing that ISL clubs have in their control to move towards sustainability.

Top academies in England and Spain regularly play round robin invitation only competitions for senior teams to scout talent.

Round robin is important part of talent identification, unlike AIFF Youth Leagues and Subroto Cup where one bad game (or game vs eventual champions) can eliminate a team.

The plan:

• U17 teams (with mandatory TW3 test) of top 10 academies called up for round robin style league that runs for 2 weeks/year with games every alternate days.
• Every club brings in talent identification team from abroad for a month. This is important, we need people who have done this well for decades, and shouldn't rely on the same inexperienced and maybe even corrupt bunch that work in ISL and the player agents.
• Optionally, give regular game time for these kids for at least 2 years in reserve team who play regularly in IFL2 or state league for best results. The team could have completely unrelated name if you don't want reserve teams performance to affect ISL brand value.

Every top academy player will have 8-9 matches against the best talent in this country to judge. With matches happening at a centralized location, it is easier for video and stats analysts to go through these many matches in a short time frame.

Even if ISL clubs end up paying ₹10-30 lakhs/player as transfer fee to academies, when these players move up to senior level, having 300 potential candidates over same 50 players we have now will pay massive dividends.

ISL clubs have to make relatable domestic stars like Bhutia or Chettri for ISL to have any relevance.

Even if some Nigerian or Spanish player is cheaper and better, no one will care about them over the Nigerians and Spainards in EPL and La Liga.

With new ISL structure and CEO, hopefully they follow this path and we won't see them end up complaining about the same things 5 years from now.

This is not meant to be hate post towards Bibiano, I hope this discussion sheds more light on the absolute worst thing holding Indian football back right now, age fraud at youth NT levels for coaches to build their CV and reputation.

Indian youth football has been doing way better than senior NT for almost a decade now, but only under Bibiano Fernandes.

Bibiano has a stellar record of qualifying for AFC U17 4 times in a row and winning multiple SAFF U17 Championships, and no one else comes close.

Under him India U17 pulled off miracle wins vs Iran U17, and managed a 1-0 loss to Turkey U17 and 2-1 loss to South Korea U17 just last year.

Without Bibiano, India U17 failed to even qualify for AFC U17 2024-25 in a relatively easy group.

All of this has failed to result in big talent pool at senior level, where India regularly thrashes SAFF countries at youth levels but has been struggling vs them at senior levels.

What is even more surprising that Bibiano Fernandes is not really known for impressive tactics, he isn't even interested in shouting instructions during game like every youth coach and many senior level managers do.

1. So what is beyond this meteoric rise of India youth teams under Bibiano?
2. Why other head coach fail to replicate this success with products from same academies?
3. But also why does Bibiano fail to land a head coach job at Indian clubs when out of work with AIFF despite his track record, why less successful coaches like T G Purushothaman, and Clifford Miranda have been picked over him in multiple job applications and interviews?
4. And most importantly why is the talent from his youth level teams usually ignored by ISL and IFL teams despite so much success?

Simple answer, age fraud.

Let's look at how other head coaches pick their squads.

• Gawli's U20 squad is filled with mostly BFC and Punjab FC youth who finished top teams in AIFF Youth League for their age group
• Naushad Moosa's squad was full of KBFC's Youth players with few from other ISL teams
• Khalid Jamil's picks squad only from ISL.

Bibiano on the other hand has a reputation of finding talent from corners of India, from unknown academies that no one really knows of.

This can seem like a great way to scout and bring in unnoticed talent to the team, but if the kids were really talented why haven't many of them made it to senior level in the last decade?

The answer is he picks kids who are not part of AIFF Youth Leagues because they don't have a TW3 bone density test to expose his age fraud.

Currently every player who played in U14 and U16 AIFF Youth Leagues has underwent TW3 bone density test to eradicate age fraud.

But with only 2 months left for U15 WC, Bibiano has again decided to not pick team from top AIFF Youth League, instead relying more on scouting some 13,000 young players who do not have TW3 bone density records.

The kids from top 8 academies already have the tactical basics down, seems backwards to not rely on that during time crunch and lack of preparation.

But for Bibiano it's give me age fraud or give me death.

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Other things to note.

This is the biggest reason why Indian youth from NT don't go for trials abroad (and aren't scouted either), it's not just money it's also the fact that most kids are 20-22 playing for U17 NT.

Some influencers and journalists in Indian football only expose those they hate, and openly support others destroying Indian football if it suits their agenda.

Any other head coach who picks legit talent but fails to win SAFF or qualify for AFC U17 gets booted in less than a year.

I don't know how the new U17 head coach will perform, but let's stop with the social media posts comparing fraud success with someone trying to build the future generation.