Wednesday 30 / October / 2024
Muscat: Eighty to 100 young footballers from across the GCC will be arriving in Oman this weekend to take part in Juventus Academy’s annual youth tournament.
While the under-8 leg of the tournament will be held at the Muscat International School in Qurum, the other age groups will play their games across the rest of the Arab nations.
“This is a tournament we’ve organised to forge a competitive spirit among our young players and provide them the experience of playing in a tournament, because the atmosphere there is very different from what you would otherwise get in a soccer school or during a training session,” said Gerald Lami, senior coach at Juventus Academy, Oman.
“We had this tournament last year as well because we realised that it provided an opportunity for our players to meet and interact with and play against youngsters from outside Oman as well, and that sort of exposure at such a young age, especially in the Middle East, where you have people from all over the world, is very important,” he added.
The tournament involves eight teams from Juventus academies all over the Middle East, who will first compete in group stage games on Friday, with knockout games scheduled for Saturday. While the focus will be on competitive spirit, Lami stated the players will need to balance that with the values taught to them by their Juventus coaches.
“At Juventus, we’ve always stood by the spirit of fair play; fighting and cursing each other is not permitted, and this is what we will always demand of our players,” he explained. “We need to be able to balance that with the competitive spirit required to win. If you look at the best players in the world, they always have that balance between playing football the right way and knowing when to challenge that competitive spirit, and more importantly, inspiring other people to do the same.
“Yes, there are times when even the best players lose their composure and get angry, but they know the importance of being there for their teams in the right place and at the right time, and it is the importance of this balance that we are trying to teach our players,” added Lami.
“They don’t get to play very often in tournaments, and there is a very different feeling there as compared to a practice match.”
The response to last year’s tournament was positive. Lami stressed on the importance of proper organisation this time around as well.
“Whether we go abroad, like we did in Bahrain, or when we go to Abu Dhabi and Dubai to take part in other tournaments, or whether other teams come here to play, we understand that players from the Juventus Academy in Oman are ambassadors of the country and we need to behave in a manner that makes people remember Oman for the right reasons,” he elaborated.
“It has taken us a while to organise everything for this tournament, but we wanted everything to be of a very good standard, from the venue for the tournament to the drink suppliers on the day, because we understand the importance of hosting a competition of a certain standard, both on and off the pitch,” Lami noted.
