For a football hotbed like Nigeria, meaningful pathways for youngsters to pursue their football dreams can be hard to come by, but thankfully, that is all set to change with the birthing of the Stars Builder Academy, a grassroots talent development factory that aims to grow the next generation of Nigerian football talent.
By targeting emerging talents in Africa’s most populous country, Stars Builder Academy aims to hone the potential of thousands of promising teenagers and prepare them for professional football, thus providing them with a path out of poverty.
“We set Stars Builders Academy up to harness the young talents we have in the country knowing full well that we have over 60 to 70 per cent of the Nigerian population on the youth level,” Kayode Temenu a director at the academy tells busybuddiesng.com.
“We have a lot of young talents here and we feel it’s an area where we can contribute to the development of the country in our own way; so, myself and some couple of friends came together to set up the academy.
“It is still very new but we have big plans for the academy.”
Based in the sleepy Southwestern town of Ijebu Ode, Stars Builder Academy which held its first training session on 8 February 2021 performs a vital service in a country where professional clubs don’t necessarily have the resources to have extensive youth recruitment networks.
Without academies like Star Builders to provide opportunities for football development to aspiring footballers, many talented youngsters will slip through the net, taking their dreams with them.
Currently, there are 18 players within the 16-years age bracket living in the academy’s facilities where they hone their craft under the expert guidance of Gabriel Ezema, a youthful but extensively experienced LaLiga trained coach.
So, how were the players selected? Temenu says the players were scouted from all across the country and selected into the academy’s residential programme based purely on their promise and talent.
Ezema who helped Rangers win the NPFL title in 2016 and the Federation Cup in 2018 tells busybuddiesng.com of qualities he looks for in promising youngsters.
“First, you get to look out for young players with a lot of quality with a lot of talent and focus a lot on speed because speed is a very key factor in modern football,” he says.
“You focus on intelligence in terms of decision making, first touch, final balls and focus on other minor details like what they do off the ball – off the ball movement, support, runs, defensive situations.”
Players who satisfy the set criteria are accepted into the programme where Ezema sets about moulding them into well-rounded but grounded footballers adept at both the tactical and psychological aspects of the sport.
“The next level is to try as much as possible first, to develop the players,” he says. “Make the players understand the game, develop the technical, tactical aspect also, of course, the psychological aspect, the social aspect.”
