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ARMSTRONG VAZ [EMAIL PROTECTED] MARGAO SEPT 18: They are just thirty six. An age when some of their former playing colleagues are still active and playing the game at the highest level. They quit the game a couple of season back. They are new entrants to coaching arena. They have enormous task and responsibility ahead as the Goa professional league kicks off later today (Sunday, September 18, 2005). The big guns will be gunning for the two clubs with whom these coaches are associated. Will they be able to pull of a few upsets and turn the apple cart of their famed rivals top-tursy? Coaching was the next step to keeping them engrossed with the game that has given them a name and made them a recognizable face in Goa's football fraternity. Raia Sporting Club's Ajay Acharya and MPT Sports Council coach Camilo Baptista are the new guns on the coaching horizon aiming for new talent and grooming young Goan footballers for the bigger challenges and plotting on the drawing boards for their respective teams. Navelim-based Ajay Acharya started his football career with Rosary High School, from his home-village. Former international and a former defender Hercules Gomes, Ajay's next-door neighbour had the greatest influence on Ajay's football career. Ajay grew up emulating Hercules' style of play and his mannerism on the football field. It was but natural for Ajay to take up his idol's position as a defender in any team he joined. Ajay's first destination was Salcete Football Club. A club which has played a surrogate mother for numerous great footballers from Goa. He then hopped over to now defunct Anderson Marine. Ajay next moved to Orkay Mills Mumbai, another now-defunct club. A move which Ajay says was on the advice of his mentor Hercules. A move which he feels was in the right direction. This move opened doors to a wider world for Ajay. Air India coach Bimal Ghosh, the shrewd tactician who had have groomed many a raw talent, molded him to be a regular player with the team of India's national carrier. "Bimal Ghosh has made a lasting impression on my football, career not to forget Hercules. GFA secretary Savio Messais too has given me the right opportunity after completing my C-license," says Ajay with humility. Ajay then came to Dempo Sports Club and then finished his playing days with Fransa Pax Football Club. Ajay, till recently, was playing with the junior boys and some of the senior pros like Chandrakant Naik for the Navelim inter-village team. Benaulim-based Camilo Baptista started from his village team and got awarded with a place in the then first division outfit Agassaim Youth Club. Late Fernando Abranches, Agassaim coach, could keep the defender-cum-midfielder for just one season and the next 13 years saw the robust Camilo remaining a faithful soldier of MPT SC. Marcus Pacheco, Raimond Carvalho and Carlos Gomes are the MPT coaches he has played under. Incidentally Camilo replaces Carlos Gomes who was coach at MPT till last season. Carlos incidentally was replaced after a new set of office bearers of the sports committee took over midway into the season. Camilo Baptista's football instincts and talents remain unfulfilled at his school, Loyola's Margao. He kicked off his football with Damodar College Margao, where he completed his graduation. His coaching career started with his training of the Under 15 team of his village club Cana Benaulim Sporting Association, that was five years back. Since then the passion and challenges of coaching a team has ignited the fire of success and the challenge has motivated him to greater heights to be conquered in coaching. "Coaching a team is a challenge. It is completely different aspect if one compares a player's playing career and a coaching career," he says matter of factly. Camilo will have a first feel of the senior level as he takes over MPT. MPT has some of his colleagues like Vishant Pednekar, Jeetrendra Bhise, Shaikh Aboo, and Lino Perieira to name a few, who till recently where his playing mates and now relate to him as their new coach, presiding over their destiny. It should not be a problem, as the senior pros are generally seen as cooperative in designing plots for the downfall of their rival teams. At Raia, Ajay too has one of his former Air India colleague, goalkeeper-turned-striker Raimond Cardozo, playing for Raia Sporting Club. Time will tell whether the two have arrived on the scene or whether they are just a flash in the pan and whether they are ready for the bigger challenges of Indian football. The Goan professional football league fortunes will put them under the scanner. It will be the acid test for the two young guns on the coaching front. Stay tuned in... --------- Armstrong Vaz is a South Goa based journalist, working for the Gomantak Times. GOANET READER welcomes contributions from its readers, by way of essays, reviews, features and think-pieces. We share quality Goa-related writing among the Goanet family of mailing lists. Please do send in your feedback to the writer. Our writers share their writing pro bono. Goanet Reader welcomes your feedback at goanet@goanet.org and is edited by Frederick Noronha [EMAIL PROTECTED]