KOCHI: Atleta, a football turf based in Kazhakootam, recently launched an eponymous woman’s football team comprising 15 techies. The players are employees of Oracle India Pvt Ltd, and were the champions of Prathidwani 2019, a woman’s football tournament organised at Technopark in October. According to 24-year-old Deepthi S, who is the team captain, most of the players started playing football only last year. “All of us were followers of the game until last January when our company conducted an internal competition in January,” she said. The team is presently practising for ‘Golazzo’, a five-a-side tournament which will be conducted at Technopark next week.
The team holds two training sessions every week to improve their game and fitness. “We can feel that our game has improved, but we still need more time and practice to do our best,” said Deepthi. Although they are allowed to practise free of cost from 6am to 6pm at Atleta turf, the players don’t get to make it in time for the free slots due to their work schedule. Founders of Atleta turf and a few other Technopark employees provide the basic training to the team.
Moreover, the founders of the turf are also planning to offer professional coaching to the women starting the second week of May. “U2PRO, a group of aspiring coaches, will be training them at the facility,” said Jomi George, one of the co-founders of Atleta. “We will begin training from basic level as they do not have much exposure to the game and its techniques. It is also the first time that we are offering complete level coaching to woman footballers,” said Rejith V P, one of the founders of U2PRO.
Atleta turf was set up to encourage sports and games and provide city residents with more outdoor spaces to play. “The techies have a minimum time for activities and our turf is only five minutes away from Technopark,” said Jomi. Unique caricatures of Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Diego Maradona and Pele are also featured on the turf walls to provide inspiration to the players. “We also have further plans to develop a skating and volleyball facility at the venue,” he added.