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News TodayChennai lad gets a kick out of FutsalWednesday, 7 September 2016Chennai: With Futsal slowly gaining a foothold in Chennai, more youngsters in the city are taking to the sport with an aim to make it big.
Bharath Raj S, a class XI student of Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan, KK Nagar, captained the India Under-17 Futsal team which got a wild card entry into the Futsal World Cup held in June this year at Paraguay.
Like most youngsters in the country, Bharath was initially playing cricket but took a liking towards football during his sixth grade. Due to his dribbling skills, Bharath started pursuing Futsal at Tiki Taka in Kilpauk which was one of the first rooftop (Futsal) arenas in Chennai.
Bharath got a chance to represent Tamilnadu in the National Under-17 Futsal tournament after having trained by his coach Sivaji and Shyam Sundar.
Having pumped in seven goals during the tournament, Bharath was awarded the player of the tournament, even though Tamilnadu ended up as the runner-up having lost to Telengana.
"I won the player of the tournament title and it boosted my confidence level. After this, when I heard that I would be captaining India in the World Cup, it was surreal. It was an awesome experience competing with players from all over the world," said Bharath.
Having only trained with his team-mates for two days, India which was in Group A with Catalonia, Kazhaksthan and host nation Paraguay could not advance to the next round.
"Though we were not able to qualify, we gave it our best. I wish I could play more such tournaments in the future and make India proud," says Bharath.
Though ranked 152 in the world, experts say that with better infrastructure India can produce more world class players. "There are more and more Futsal arenas coming up in Chennai. In the last year alone there around four arenas which have come up in Chennai. With better infrastructure we can produce better players and grass root level training can be enforced," said Hemnath a coach at an academy in Chennai.
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Luca Ranocchiari -->
luca.ranocchiari@futsalplanet.com