As the floodlights hit the training ground/ home stadium, turning the freshly rolled out pitch a bright green, the Pune Football Club players don their team kits and run onto the ground to start practice for their big opening game on Saturday against League bigwigs East Bengal Football Club. And after a grueling hour and a half long session along with the melee of local talent, five energetic young foreigners friskily run into the changing complex along with the others trying their hand at broken Hindi and English, merging seamlessly into the fabric of the PFC team.

The five youngsters Arata Izumi (Japan), Edmar Figueira (Brazil), Djidjia Douhou Pierre ( Cote D’Ivoire), Chika Wali (Nigeria) and Sergey Tokov (Uzbekistan) form not only the backbone of the team by playing in key positions but also bring in the much needed foreign talent so that they can not only share the same with their Indian counter parts but also give the team a definitive cutting edge over the other established teams of the first division.

On his recent joining at PFC from Mahindra United Djidjia Douhou Pierre says, “One of the most important things for our team here is the fact that even though we will be playing against an established first division team in our maiden match of the campaign we will have the support of the home fans for it. Moreover we just need the right attitude for the same. And we are jelling very well as a team and hope to give the home fans a good reason to cheer about.”

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