Back in 1967, the government of Ghana approached the Brazilian foreign ministry with a request for someone to help coach footballers in the newly independent state. The man sent on deputation was Carlos Alberto Parreira, then a 23-year-old rising star in the country’s coaching firmament. Last July Parreira met up with his former employers in Dortmund: He was among the world’s top coaches, and Ghana were playing their first-ever World Cup.

It took 39 years for the Brazilian’s work to bear fruit; it may take 25 years for India to benefit from a similar effect (that’s the time frame set by Prof Manoel Espezim Neto, the head of the Brazilian Football Academy). But the Latino Midas touch alone may not be enough to salvage Indian football from its current depths; for a potential winning goal, those who run the sport must look at youth.

The world over, football — whether at the club or national level — is upgrading its skills and fashioning new stars thanks to the academy system. The very big clubs manage their bottom-line with a steady influx from their youth teams; Manchester United’s domination of English football in the 1990s was thanks to a core group of six (Beckham included) who’d played alongside each other since pre-teen days. Two of the best teenagers in world football, Cesc Fabregas and Lionel Messi, became best friends while at Barcelona’s La Masia academy.

It’s not just the big clubs but the smaller nations too — a more appropriate example for India to emulate. How, for example, did Ivory Coast overcome the ravages of war and the lack of almost any infrastructure to send a team to the World Cup? By setting up academies — 300 in the capital, Abidjan, alone. This initially worked as a supply line to clubs in France and Belgium but eventually the talents coalesced into a world-class national team.

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