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Who will be the lucky 12?

Sports Reporter
The Airtel Rising Stars football tournament might have been completed yesterday with Khulna Division emerging champions by beating Dhaka Division-2 by a single goal but the real attraction begins today as footballers bid to fulfil their dream to visit and train at Manchester United.
12 hooters will be selected from a pool of 200 who will train and play today and tomorrow at the Bangladesh Krira Shikkha Protisthan under the watchful eyes of the three-member coaching staff of Manchester United Soccer School (MUSS).
Kevin O'Conwell, Mick Bennett and Mike McClean arrived in the city on Thursday from Sri Lanka and watched the 60-minute final match at the Bangabandhu National Stadium yesterday but all three will be more focused today and tomorrow as they bid to sift through the 200 or so U-16 talents who have come to this stage after beating numerous odds.
The Airtel Rising Stars programme which offers up the chance of a 7-day training at the Soccer School of Manchester United has created a huge buzz among the youths. An unbelievable 60,000 football crazy youths had registered their names for this opportunity. This comes at a time when the popularity of the game in the country is waning day-by-day.
The coaches of Bangladesh Football Federation had first selected 16 football-
ers from each of the 64 districts from a huge quantity of participants. Selections were completed through short trials and the district teams played among them before emerging divisional champions. After that divisional teams were formed, and these comprised the best 25 from each division.
The 200 selected footballers of the eight divisions could hardly learn anything from the Airtel Rising Stars programme as the youngsters were really busy with the matches at different stages to prove themselves before the players of two finalists got some tips from their respective coaches ahead of Friday's final at the BNS.
As there had been no arrangement of training for the youngsters at the any level in the tournament, the local coaches could hardly make any judgements on who the future stars could be. It was then left to the teammates who proved to be in the best position to judge their opponents and team members.
It was understandable then, that most players picked out their peers who had already been in the system for a long time. Most players who their peers identified as stars had already been picked for the national teams such as U-13, U-14 and U-15 teams. However, there were some exceptions to this rule.
In eye of the players, defenders Mithu, Ripon, Shohag and Saikat and goalkeeper Rony are the best players of Dhaka Division-1 team with Mithu, Shohag and Rony playing U-13, U-14 and U-15 squads but Ripon despite not having played at any age-group levels still found himself voted amongst the top players in the competition.
“It might be that they mentioned me but here all the players are good but I am not satisfied with my performance and there is still some room to improve. I have to present myself before the foreign coaches and I am determined to impress them,” said a confident Ripon who hails from the Faridpur district.
Like Dhaka Division-2 and Chittagong, there are many names mentioned by their teamsmates. Winger Emon, defenders Iqbal, Sharif, midfielder Sohel Arman of Sylhet Division, strikers Leon and Morshed, midfielder Jeon, goalkeeper Nirob and midfielder Piyal of Rangpur Division, defenders Biswanath and Kiron, midfielders Kiron, Rabiul, Likhon and striker Ilias from runners-up Dhaka Division-2 and midfielder Mithun and Babu, goalkeeper Zahir, defenders Bibek and Jiblu and striker Sumon from champions Khulna Division are considered to be ahead of others participants to get a final place in the 12-member squad.
However, the final decision will be taken by the three coaches of the Soccer School of Manchester School in the next two days.
“Bennett, McClean and me will take these boys to three practice sessions and we will be looking for quality players,” said Kevin while watching the final match at the BNS.
“Once they are in the Manchester United Soccer School, it will be very interesting for them, they will see the training and whole academy system. Soccer School is a great place to visit and learn football,” Kevin said. “They will come back home with a fantastic experience and share it with their teammates and it will be a great motivation for them to be a future footballer.”
In three practice sessions, the players will be given some skill drills and put into different game situation such as one vs one (attacking), three vs three (defending) in an effort to asses their capability of different skills as well as positional knowledge on the pitch.