SEVENTY-FIVE?young Pro-Shottas footballers are on course in their preparation for the AC Milan Continental Cup Youth International Tournament to be held in Cleveland in early July, says head coach Greg Castagne.
Castagne said the five Pro-Shottas teams will be competing in the Under-11, Under-12, Under-13, Under-16 and under-17 age groups.
He said he believed the policy of putting the teams in higher age groups in both the Barbados Cup and the Barbados Football Association’s (BFA)?Youth tournaments was working in toughening the players for when they go to Ohio.
“The policy means we aim to develop players and while we won the Barbados Cup with a young team without six national Under-17 representatives in the Under-19 division, this was a bonus in building confidence rather than winning a tournament,” Castagne said.
With five weeks left to finetune preparations, Castagne is hopeful that the College scouts attending the prestigious tournament will be keen to snap up at least six of his Under-17 players for the academic year starting in September 2014.
He said interest has been expressed in Renaldo Bailey, Freddie Mulligan, Lenross Davis, Jason Worme and guest player Sebastian Hunte already.
“The other national representatives, Rasheed Clarke and Rishi Panjwani, among others, are also on the Colleges’ scouting radar. Even 14-year-old Kyro Gibling is being targeted by a high school in Philadelphia for a scholarship,” Castage noted.
He also lauded the Pro Shottas’ younger teams and their coaches, indicating that the Under-13 team which include mainly primary school players had reached the semi-finals of the BFA’s youth tournament while the Under-16 team did so, playing in the Under-17 division.
“There are primary school players in the Under-13s and Under-15 players in the Under-17s impressing playing locally so we should be in good stead for when we play the physically strong American and African teams at The Continental Cup. Personally I think our Under-15 development team in the BFA tournament coached by Eric Alleyne will win the Under-13 age group in Cleveland,” he said. (EZS)
