Blue colts’ Oram dedicates Golden Ball to late father

Mohammed Rumman Khan | NT 

Bengaluru FC (BFC) midfielder Bekey Oram, who was awarded the Golden Ball for his consistent performances throughout the inaugural edition of the Reliance Foundation Development League (RFDL), said he dedicated the ‘prestigious’ award to his father who passed away recently. BFC were crowned champions following a draw against second-placed Kerala Blasters at Benaulim in Goa on May 12.

Coach Naushad Moosa’s Blue Colts managed to hold their rivals to finish atop with 19 points from seven games. In the process, they emerged as the only unbeaten side in the league.

The winners and runnersup will now represent India in the Nextgen Cup in the UK later this year. Oram missed his Class 10 exams due to the matches, but he doesn’t cry foul over it. “My dream is to play for India soon, and become a regular in the senior team of BFC.”

The midf i e l d e r who hails from Odisha confessess that he doesn’t come from a privileged family but appreciates that everyone around him fully supports him in his burning passion - to play football at the highest level.

Ronaldo the hero

Bengaluru striker Rahul Raju, with seven goals to his name in the competition, was awarded ‘the Golden Boot’ for being the top scorer of the tournament. “I want to become like Cristiano Ronaldo and I’m following all the routines that help me in the process,” said Raju. The striker, who’s in Class 11 in Kerala, said that even if an individual’s performance is going down, the team culture is such that they help one another to overcome those shortcomings. He hails coach Moosa for the camaraderie in the team. “This is one of the biggest reasons we won the tournament, playing as we did like a team rather than 11 individuals.”

All the players are excited to be participating in the NextGen Cup. We are well aware that the competition will be challenging in the UK. “We will give it our 100 percent. 

In fact, we have already started working hard at the drills to enhance our skills,” said Raju, who’s eyeing the top-scorer’s sport there as well. “The NextGen Cup will be a good experience for this bunch, as they will play against teams that are physically good and pose a serious challenge,” said the coach. 

BFC’s Amay Morajkar, who was named man of the match for his heroics in the final, has a story to narrate. 
About how to overcome odds stacked against you. Amay was down with an ACL injury for 11 months and was hugely disappointed. The midfielder, who’s pursuing BCom in Goa, brooded alone in his room for days on end, wondering if it were curtains on his career. 
“My teammates helped me get out of the trauma. Special thanks to our coach Moosa for giving me the confidence to hit the ground again.” He spent close to a year in rehab, working his way back from the cruciate injury. 
“Credit goes to my mother as well for constantly supporting me whenever I was disappointed, so I invited her to click a picture with me, as she came to witness the final. Being declared the player of the big match in her presence was really special.” 
The coach said, “I was on the phone with him as much as possible to keep him motivated and make sure he didn’t feel like he was alone. Rehab can often be a very lonely place and I am glad to say that he had the right people around him, the physios, teammates and coaches, to get him through that rough patch.” 

“Once I won my battle against the injury, the rest, as they say, is history.” Amay said it’s important to take that first positive step after a drawback and it’s essential to speak up to someone who can guide. 

BFC coach Naushad Moosa knows how to get the best out of his players. 

“My message to the boys was simple, just to be out there, enjoy the game and express yourselves. They have done remarkably well, and under the circumstances, I am really proud of the win.” The coach recalls that it wasn’t tough to motivate the players, because as a group most of them want to break into the senior team and perform well. They are a disciplined lot and Moosa hopes to see them make it big in the future. Not only for players, Moosa said even for coaches it was a challenging platform. The Blues captain Namgyal Bhutia said that RFDL has helped them grow in terms of individually as well as a team. The skipper is hopeful that ‘B’ team boys can now play for the senior team in the “near future”. 

India captain Sunil Chhetri lauded the RFDL for creating a much-needed platform for the next generation of footballers in the country to graduate to the nex