Jordi Gris Vila: From Camp Nou to JN Stadium, a man with an eye for talent

CHENNAI: It was a sight that defied belief. On the fast-withering turf of the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, Reserve Bank of India were taking on Chennai FC in a typical CFA Senior Division game, unfit players, bad decision making, laughably dodgy penalties. Sitting in the stands and taking notes on the match was the man who discovered Mauro Icardi.

Jordi Gris Vila is in Chennai as I-League outfit Chennai City FC’s new assistant coach and director of youth football and he isn’t wasting time acclimatising himself to his new office. The I-League season may have just ended but Vila and the coach he will assist, Akbar Nawas, are already scouting players for next year. And as their presence at the Senior Division games suggests, they are prepared to look under every nook and corner.

Vila’s immediate concern at Chennai City may be creating a youth structure but his primary talent lies in judging how good a player is and how good he can be. “After my career as a player, I was a scout at Barcelona, the club where I was part of the youth teams (U-7 to U-14),” Vila says. The Catalan club sent him to scout the Canary Islands for potential youth recruits. It was here that Vila stumbled upon the likes of Icardi, the Inter Milan captain, whose parents had migrated from Argentina when he was 9, and Sandro Ramirez, who plays for Sevilla on loan from Everton.

“In Barcelona, when we look for players, we look at not only at the talent and physique but also at the psychological side,” Vila says. “The player has to be mentally strong to make it at a club like Barcelona.”

Vila attempted to kick-start a coaching career after leaving Barcelona in 2011, working with Spanish third division side UD Ibarra and Kuwaiti club Yarmouk SC. But he was lured back into the world of scouting, this time with Manchester City. “My work in Manchester City was different,” Vila says. “It was not to discover players. It was to follow the performance of the players they tell me to follow. I was doing that in Germany and France and making weekly reports.”

India would seem like another world when compared to Barcelona and City. But Vila is adamant that he can do a lot of good here. “I’ve just arrived, so I haven’t seen much apart from Chennai City,” he says. “But I was really impressed with the level of Soosairaj. There are players with skill and talent, who we can work on, especially on the tactical side. But it is difficult to find players like Soosairaj, who has the confidence to do whatever he wants on the field.”

And like countless foreign experts who have all arrived at similar conclusions while diagnosing India’s problems, Vila too believes that a lot has to do with young players not playing more. “The players in Spain, they start at 4-5 years. They start with their clubs at this age,” he says. “The most important thing for the kids is the football they’ll play at their schools. That is where they will learn to make a pass and control the ball. After picking up these skills, they need to learn how to work better and increase their intensity when they are 14 or 15.”

vishnu.prasad@newindianexpress.com