The chances for a club to mount a challenge for major competitions are always slim when they do not boast a number of quality players in their team or financial resources to attract top talent.
However, such clubs can always seek alternative methodologies to forge an identity and maintain a solid reputation among their competitors.
One sector in which these clubs can blossom is youth development which is a fundamental department in football.
Kirkop United women’s team are one of the clubs that fall into this category. While striving to be among the elite teams in the coming years, for now the Reds are focusing on nurturing homegrown players to be part of their future first team and hopefully make the grade with the Malta national team.
At the same time, Kirkop are also trying to provide their players opportunities beyond just winning the domestic league.
In fact, the club has embarked on a collaboration with Serie A giants Torino – a partnership that had its primary aim for the men’s football but it may well pay more dividends for the women’s selection, according to coach Kenneth Costantino.
“The collaboration with Torino has already started to pay dividends,” Costantino, who also supervises every category of their women teams, told Times of Malta.
“The idea, which has its founder in the head coach of the nursery, Charlie Borg, was to help ouryoung boys with training camps under the supervision of the Torino coaches.
“However, I think it has created much more opportunities for the girls team rather than the boys due to the difference in level that exists between the men’s and women’s game.”
The primary factor that runs in favour of the Kirkop girls is that Torino are yet to have a team in the Serie A Femminile.
The Granata have female teams until the Primavera category, thus they are scouting girls from different places in the interest of recruiting a strong team.
This collaboration could be a precious medium for the Maltese girls to earn themselves a dream move to of the best women’s leagues Europe.
“There is a lot to learn from such collaborations for both the players and the coaches,” Costantino said.
“They have an eye to detail in how to improve the girls and that can help us as a team step up to another level.
“The girls are learning a lot and they are also being offered the chance to spend some time with them in Turin. In fact, there have been already two group of girls who headed for a summer camp and for a training camp (trials) with Torino during the year.
“Recently, one of their coaches, Umberto Esposito, had been impressed by the improvement shown by Kirkop players and coaches and that is big endorsement for our club.”
The club is planning to host another three-day training camp next month under the tutelage of Torino coaches who will be monitoring closely Kirkop’s female players as well.
Team’s potential
Despite the difficulties that both the Kirkop’s seniors and U-19 team are finding in their respective championship, Costantino is upbeat about the potential that their players have.
“We look to be competitive in every category in the coming years as this will help us nurture our girls in the best possible way,” he said.
“When you look at our U-19s teams you may notice some difficulties but if one looks further down, particularly the U-15’s and U-12’s selections, there is a lot of positives coming out and that shows that we have laid the right foundations for a brighter future.”
NEXT FIXTURES
PLAYING TODAY
Mosta Ground
Mosta vs Birkirkara - 20.15
Mġarr Ground
Raiders Għargħur vs Kirkop United - 20.15
TOMORROW
Dingli Ground
Hibernians vs Mġarr United - 20.15
MD6 bye: Swieqi United.