by NR INDRAN / INT

Mumbai’s Amar Shah and Pune’s Pranav Kale emerged the most skillful players from among 96 aspirants who participated n the Manchester United Soccer Schools Mumbai Skills finals and were picked to travel to Old Trafford to participate in the World Skills finals, to be held on October 20th.

Amar Shah, a 10th standard student from NewEra School and Pranav Kale, a 10-year-old from Loyola School, Pune, impressed the coaches most as they were put through short passing, dribbling and control challenges in the day-long test of skills at the Cooperage football ground on Sunday.

“The Mumbai Skills final was an age-appropriate challenge in terms of distances to ensure a level playing field and points were awarded to each player for the different challenges. Amar and Pranav garneredthe maximum number of points,” said Manchester United Soccer Schools chief coach Chris O’Brien while explaining the selection process.

The two players will be sent on a four-day trip to Manchester, where they will be given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of travelling to the Old Trafford Stadium to participate in the World Skills Final on the famous Old Trafford pitch, along with players selected from 75 countries.

The World Skills Finals will be held before the Manchester United Vs Stokes game on 20th October, 2012 at Old Trafford and will give the players a platform to perform before an audience of76,000

The players will train at the “Cliff”, where the famous Busby Babes used to practice and also be given a tour of the Trafford Training Centre, Carrington, where the first team players of Manchester United Football club train.

Football players between age group 8 to 19, coming from cities as diverse as Pune, Sangli, Baroda, Ahmedabad, Delhi, Gurgaon,Sahranpur, Lucknow and Kolkatta were among the 96 players who paraded their talent in the Mumbai Skills Finals.

The players invited for the Mumbai Skills Finals were given a Control Challenge demonstration by MUSS Head Coach Chris O’Brien and Lead Coach Mike Bennett, followed by group sessions on Dynamic Mobility, before undergoing workshops in the classroom.

The afternoon session saw the players getting a demonstration on short passing and dribbling from ChrisO’Brien and Mike Bennett, before they were given an opportunity to display their skills.

The Skills Challenge included short passing challenge, dribbling challenge, small sided games and 4 versus 4 tournaments, before the two winners were declared.

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