23 Apr 2017
Doha, 23 April 2017. For two days, twenty-four (24) secondary schools teams in Doha from grade 7 to 9 are competing for the honours in the “Aspire School Festival 2017”. The group stage on Sunday brought hundreds of enthusiastic young football players to the pitches of Aspire Academy and the teams even received a special support from professional coaches of the Qatar Stars League and the QFA.
The tournament, which is played on pitches sized 68mx45m, with 9 players per team and with a match duration of 20 minutes, started with six groups consisting if four teams each. For coaches such as Qatar National Team coach Jorge Fossati attended the first day’s play and remarked, “This a worthwhile and important is event shows which strengthens the pillars of future football in Qatar. I have seen one or two players with good talent that once identified can be developed and this is the way to go in terms of preparing for a strong football teams”.
Also in attendance was, Sami Trabelsi, coach of Qatar League Stars club side Al Sailiya who said, “This schools festival is a great initiative from Aspire Academy and partner organisers because it gives opportunities to unseen players who upon doing well can be invited to join Aspire Academy or if not so, they could be picked up by clubs and ultimately its Qatar football that benefits from this even”
Meanwhile, Al Sadd coach, Jesualdo Ferreira was another top coach watching and he had this to say, “This event makes sense to me and is definitely the right approach to the aim of the exercise. I say so because, there is no better place to start from than schools, this is where everything begins and it’s the right environment to capture the youth, train and develop them as you intend to. Looking ahead and to the future, this festival is an event that will certainly yield positive results for football in Qatar “
The second stage of the tournament takes place on Monday at 9am at the Aspire Dome Indoor Pitch. The kick off for the final is at 11am.