“We teach our kids to play like Barcelona, Arsenal” – Ituen Football Academy Head Coach

Recently Nigerian  football has witnessed a new era of mushroom football academies flourishing and attracting Scouts the world over. This means money and fame. But very few football academies have good training pitch, kits or technical proficiency. Akanimo Kufre spoke with Ituen Sports International Academy’s Moses Lawrence, Head coach grass root sports developer. Can they offer something new or improve the dreams of teeming youngsters?

What is the name of your academy and its focus?

The name is Ituen Sports International Academy, it was founded 2 years ago by the member representing Itu in Akwa Ibom House of Assembly, Hon. Idongesit Ituen. He had the vision of developing young talent into stars. The idea was born and the academy was founded and in the first year the academy played under the tutelage of chief coach Friday Ekpo, and then they reached the semi-finals of the FA Cup where they lost to Akwa Starlet. The following year saw a reshuffling where Friday Ekpo left after terminating his contract and Coach Effiong Okon Effiong was brought on board. He steered the team to the finals of Udom U18 championship that was decided at the Nest of Champions where Ituen Academy was placed 2^nd after losing to ‘Greater Tomorrow’ by a solitary goal in that epic finals. After that year we my own appointment as the head coach of the U18 Football Team. Last year was a landmark for us as we won the state league and national U17 competition in Edo State, South-south. We went on to represent South-south at the national level in Abuja where we were knocked out at the quarter finals in Abuja. We came back home and played in Champions League at Ikot Ekpene and reached the semi-finals but had to abandon the game because of a date we had to keep with the national U17 team in Abuja. As at now two of our players are in Lagos preparing to go out of the country for trials. And we have been having a lot of scouts coming here. This training arena in the House of Assembly has hosted a lot matches that we played last season. Last season we were undefeated here with highest score line of 7-0 spanking of Kingdom FC of Uyo and our worst result happen to be 0-0 with Uniuyo School team. However the team has grown from strength to strength. As you can see the training has intensify as we are preparing for the FA Cup. We want to win the State FA cup irrespective of the fact that Akwa United, Akwa Starlet, Ibom Youth FC are playing we won’t fear those names. The team has been strengthen in the coaching area by Emmanuel King former Mobil Pegasus, Ibom Stars and Akwa United player and head coach he was humble enough to accept the post as the technical adviser so we are blessed. He is going to equip us with lot of knowledge in the technical aspect of the game so we hope to go stronger come this season.

Aside from training youngsters in your academy, do you look forward to registering your team in the Nigeria National League?

For now am not we are not registering for NNL what we are looking for is sending our players overseas for trials but we have plans to play in the Nationwide league come next season. We were looking for a slot but you know the registration formalities have just been closed by the Nationwide League division. So we are looking at that next year. For now we will go and defend our state league this time around. At the national play off I forgot to mention we lost via penalty kicks at the finals to Inert Stars FC from Edo State. we defeated Mountain of fire in the semi-finals via penalty kick as well.  That would have been our short cut to the national level. If we had won the national play off, we would have been in the nationwide league.

For now what standards do you apply to accept kids into Ituen Youth FC Academy?

We have our scouting networks. You must first of all be good, you cannot find a player that is 100% good but you must have that spark, ball control etc and U15.

What are your equipment and facility challenges so far?

Our boss have been trying to import some facilities to help us in the training session, recently he went to China where he ordered a lot of equipment and we have some on ground already we are still expecting more to arrive . He is going back there to ensure most of this equipment is shipped to Nigeria so that we can make good use of them.

In Europe, football club is big business. Which club would you say Ituen FC is modelled after either in Europe or Nigeria?

I would not say we are modelled after any club but there are some team we like their pattern of play. You know as an academy you must like the way Arsenal FC play you can’t model your team after the ‘kick and follow’ style like Chelsea (apologized). You model after Barcelona, Arsenal pattern of play, you know the ‘tiki taka’ kind of soccer.

Truly we see a similar entertaining football in Akwa United pattern of play but do you see the gap and try to supply it through your academy especially the goal scoring department?

Yes we are studying Akwa United who play pleasant football to the eyes, you know you must have a strong and very good bench to avoid sad mistake. We want to fill the void when a player is injured. In Akwa United if the two flanks, Aniekeme Asuquo and Ubong Friday are out of play the team seems to lack some bite. We must have three players per position to avoid that condition such that if one is down another can play. There was a time our top goal scorer Emem Thompson, top league scorer was injured and we had a younger player who was U18, he step up to fill the void and the absence of Emem was not noticed so much because the boy scored 9 goals in 5 matches. That is one great weapon we are having in Ituen Academy. In each position we have three players.

We lack free kick specialist in Akwa United and Nigeria as a whole, what is your academy doing about this?

Recently our boss imported the free kick image board that helps in taking free kicks we have about five of them that will be erected here for us. Having said that in the past season I remember a match we played and it was very tough for us here and we use the free kick to score three wonderful goals. We have been training very hard on area as this is also an area you can have goals. If you play the tiki taka and there is no goal and then you create chances at the edge of the box you are certain of having goals. That image board is helping us perfect our skill at free kick taking.

Which other football academy would you say is competing shoulder to shoulder with Ituen Academy in this region of the country?

Well as it stands now we must have had lots of mushroom academy coming up but we observe that being a champion last season does not mean we must go home and sleep, somebody could come up and surprise us. It is happening in football so that is why we are not sleeping over it. We must maintain that position as we want to be at the top. We had Greater Tomorrow, but there are not in the league so we cannot really compare them with our strength, we have the Super Star Academy who is just coming up, we have played two games with them and manage to get 4 points, win one and draw one. We know they are challenging us for powers we don’t need to sleep, there must be competition to make us stronger. Without them there will be no us!

What are the age grades that you have currently in Ituen Academy?

At the moment we have U19s. It you look over there (players warming up) you can spot some 14 and 15 years old. U15 and U17 is my area and we are hoping to recruit them in the later part of the year when all the facilities and logistics are put in proper place the U15 will come on board in time. We will publicize that on radio, tv, poster etc. We are planning to use three centres one at Eket, Ikot Ekpene and Uyo to bring the kids together where they will be training twice a week.