Senegal-based Aspire International team.
For many young boys growing up in the developing world, the chances of taking up a professional football career can appear bleak, regardless of their potential.
However, Aspire International’s 3-2 victory against Real Madrid, on the first day of the Al Kass International Cup, saw an exceptionally talented group of players take a step closer to fulfilling that dream.
Comprising players from across Africa, Aspire International dramatically demonstrated that they can more than match the world’s elite teams.
“We are a strong team with the African physique and, paired with our speed and power, we have a good advantage over some of the other teams,” said coach Saliou Dia.
“We also have a lot of good technical players, but do need to improve the team’s overall concentration.” Such a concern was not immediately apparent to the delighted Aspire players following the team’s contest against the Spaniards. “We played a good game in the second half of the match against Real Madrid, which was an overall harsh game,” said forward Funsho Ibrahim Bamgboye. “We may not have played our best in the first half but I’m very proud to say we truly played as a team.”
For coach Dia, the Aspire International team is more than ready to go all the way, making both Arabs and Africans proud.
“We’ve trained very hard and a tournament like this will only help our players get better as they take advantage of this opportunity to compare their level against some of the best teams in the world,” he said. “I am confident that Aspire International can reach the top in this tournament.”
Team captain Alasana Manneh, from Gambia, is confident about Aspire International’s chances in this year’s competition.
“We began the tournament ready to play against some of the best clubs in the world,” he said.
“In front of teams like Real Madrid or FC Barcelona, who are generally from one city in Spain, we have the uniqueness of coming from various countries across Africa.”
Developed by the Aspire Football Dreams Scouting Programme, with two centres of excellence in Doha and Dakar, this year’s squad hails from the programme’s Senegal Academy.
Operating across 14 countries on four continents - Africa, Asia, Central and South America - Aspire Football Dreams is one of the largest initiatives of its kind in the world. An astonishing four million youths have been put through their paces up to now, with many thousands more joining each year.
Young teenagers selected for the annual programme are put through a three-phase system that sees the top 20 players awarded a full scholarship at either Aspire Academy Qatar or its equivalent in Senegal.
The project is essentially a Qatari-funded humanitarian football project that sees scouts trawl developing nations for future football talent. Several products of the system, including Ghanaian Hamza Zakari, have already gone on to represent their home nations at youth level, paving the way for glittering international careers in the future. In addition to its well-established Football Dreams programme, Aspire Academy recently joined forces with the Lionel Messi Foundation for the Malaria Project aimed at reducing infection across Africa.
The initiative, providing further evidence of Aspire’s commitment to assisting developing nations, saw the legendary FC Barcelona striker travel to the Senegal Academy for the distribution an initial 400,000 mosquito bed nets across the African countries in which Aspire Football Dreams currently operates.
The programme will also see medical personnel placed in every town where the Aspire Football Dreams project is active, in order to identify and control malaria symptoms in players and their families, providing medical care as necessary.
“The Football Dreams Programme has given us the opportunity to truly make the dreams of our young footballers come true,” said Dia. “This is why it is important for us to not only win, but win with the right attitude.”
The Aspire Football Dreams Programme operates in Africa — Senegal, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania, Asia — Thailand and Vietnam, Central America — Guatemala and Costa Rica and South American —Paraguay.
