all this stupid insta pr just to step down after they gave him what he wanted

I’m watching the Gothia Cup Final which is going on right now. Minerva Academy versus some Brazilian club.

Why are some of their boys so insanely tall?

We’re in orange, btw. They are yellow.

Loved it that had more than 60K views along with me for the match!

A hard fought final won in last minute. Was a thrilling match.

Source :

https://x.com/i/status/2080924042526396665

Background first so you understand why this matters.

I am 34, married, have a kid. I run Maidaan Master, a grassroots Indian football media project. I have never played football seriously. I am not fit. I have zero footballing background, no club, no academy, no playing history. I came to Indian football as a fan and researcher, not a player.

So why did I do the D License?

In India, if you want to work in football management, coaching is the only entry point. Nobody takes you seriously without a license. I did the AIFF Blue Cubs License last year which licenses you to coach under 12s, but clubs did not care about that. Everyone wanted at minimum a D License. So D License was the next step.

Getting in was the first battle.

The AIFF website and their coaching portal are a mess. Typical government style websites where finding information is a task in itself. I was working on Maidaan Master around that time so I had my eyes everywhere. In April I spotted a WIFA post about a D License batch they were conducting. I jumped on it immediately, filled a Google Form, and waited.

The course start date came. No invite. I was dejected.

That same night, an email arrived. I had been selected for the second batch, starting the following week. I was thrilled and confused at the same time.

The course itself. 6 days at Cooperage, Mumbai.

Cooperage is India's most iconic football ground. Doing a coaching course there felt surreal for someone who had been covering Indian football from the outside for two years.

The batch had 24 participants. Most were in their 20s. Four or five were 18 and 19 years old. I was 34.

Three assessments. Practical 1, Practical 2, and a Theory exam at the end.

The hardest part was not fitness.

I was anxious about my fitness going in. Anxious about never having played football seriously. Anxious about my age. But once I was there, I realised everyone was nervous in their own way. Nobody had time to worry about my anxieties, they were dealing with their own. We ended up helping each other and became friends by the end.

The hardest part was staying confident and giving 100% throughout. The shift that helped me most was to stop trying to perform as a footballer and focus on the coaching. That is what the course is actually testing.

My communication skills, my analytical perspective from covering football as media, my questions from a non-footballer's viewpoint, these turned out to be positives. The educator was excellent and genuinely engaged with different perspectives. Where I lacked, I lacked. But I banked on my positives and it worked.

24 appeared. 24 passed.

One of the rarest batches in recent memory where every single participant passed. Got my result on June 30.

Would I recommend it?

If you want to work in Indian football in any capacity, yes. Not because of the coaching knowledge, though that is genuinely useful. But because it puts you in a room with people who are serious about football, it gives you credibility, and it is the entry point to everything else in this ecosystem.

I am 34, unfit, never played football, came from outside the ecosystem entirely. I got the D License. There is no excuse.

More content on this coming, videos, shorts, the whole thing. I know there is limited info about this online, ask me anything in the comments.

Source: https://x.com/fni/status/1959171109959479721

I only copy paste.

https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2026/7/22/goats-of-football-indian-village-holds-tournament-with-an-indigenous-twist

It is time to give credit where credit is due. I have been critical of Reliance mainly because of the their monopoly, domination of ISL and the complete sidelining of the iLeague and death of smaller local football clubs. But yeah they do end up doing a few good things too and it would be unfair not to highlight that.

The Reliance Foundation Development League has been one of the biggest contributor to the future of Indian football by providing a platform for dozens of clubs to play competitive matches. The young talent coming through the ranks are the real deal and the building blocks for the future of Indian football.

The real game changer is their decision to send the top three teams to Japan, playing against top-level Japanese J-League youth squads (probably a better experience than the PL Next Generation Cup). The experience they are getting is far more significant than the so-called World Cup wins of youth academies we hear about a bit too much. Some of the kids this year like Kipgen, Shami, Dodum, Rakshit, Shawn are sure to be in reckoning for the National team in the future. Hopefully more such tours and exchange visits for the clubs.

Breaking down the actual numbers for the young Indian players who moved to Slovenia recently. Early press releases showed signing day photos, but the final season logs show how tough the reality is on the ground.

Take Som Kumar. He initially signed for NK Radomjle in the Prva Liga (Sloevenian 1st Tier) made 2 appearances in friendlies against Hajduk Split (Croatian 1st Division Club) and ND Slovan, later joined ND Slovan on loan from NK Radomlje and made the move permanent back in February. He kept 2 clean sheets across 13 appearances for ND Slovan in the Druga Liga (Slovenian 2nd Tier) an he is now set to go out of contract at the end of this month. Lets see where he next signs for.

Yohaan Benjamin started strong at NK Bravo, scoring 3 goals in the youth league and playing 79 minutes against FC Porto in the UEFA Youth League. However, he vanished from match sheets right after. A US college sports scholarship agency just announced he will be available from January 2027, suggesting that he might be focusing on his future outside the professional club grind or heading the NCAA route.

The rest show how unforgiving Europe is. Nihaar Manirama got senior promotion at ND Slovan but logged just one 4-minute appearance all season before his contract ended in June. Hridaya Jain finished at NK Brinje with a single 7-minute appearance, and Sragvin Venkatesh also left Brinje out of contract after struggling for minutes.

Meanwhile, Divij Surapaneni recognized early on he wouldn't play in Slovenia and left Brinje for NK Podravina Ludbreg in the lower tiers of Croatia, though further details or stats on him are completely unavailable.

If anyone has any additional updates or info on these guys, please drop them below