A new football academy has been birthed in the South Western part of Nigeria. Stars Builders Academy is the new brand with the utmost aim to groom young footballing talents in the country into super stars.
Based in Ijebu-Ode, Ogun state, Stars Builders Academy has started off on the right footing, providing youngsters under the age of twenty with real footballing nursery that had been missing for some times in the country.
The first set of players at the Stars Builders Academy began real football lessons; theory and practical, in early February 2021 under the irrepressible guidance of Gabriel Ezema, a LaLiga trained youthful coach who has an enviable bag of experience with him.
www.aclsports.com visited the team’s base on Thursday and spoke with one of the Directors Kayode Temenu as well as head coach Ezema; two very optimistic personalities.
“We set Stars Builders academy up to harness the young talents we have in the country,” began Temenu to www.aclsports.com
“Knowing fully well that we have over 60-70% of Nigerian population at the youth level. So, we have a lot of young talents here and we feel that is an area where we can contribute to the development of the country in our own way.
“It’s still very new but we have big plans for the academy,” added Temenu.
Although still very nascent, Temenu hinted at what the aim of the academy is and as well expressed his satisfaction at the amount of work done so far by the academy’s technical hands.
“We really want to model the academy after some other similar academies all over the world. We’ve started on a good note and we’ve selected some of the best coaches you can find around in the country.
“I’m really impressed by what we are doing on the pitch already and we believe we are building world beaters as far as the academy is concerned,” Temenu said.
Coach Ezema; a former assistant coach at Enugu Rangers rates the Directorial set-up of the Academy very highly and believes that the project has a high chance of being a success in the football industry.
“The success potential (of Stars Builders Academy) is very high. I will say the success potential is over 90% because we are working with a management that understands the management of football at a setting like this,” began Ezema.
“They’ve been doing excellently well in terms of providing all necessary resources for us to succeed. They’ve also been supporting us monetarily and otherwise. All we just have to do is to develop top quality player and do it consistently.”
For a coach not foreign to working with young players, Ezema also enumerated some of the key qualities they look out for in their admitted players and what they intend to do with it.
“We get to look out for young players with a lot of qualities with a lot of talents and we focus a lot on speed because speed is a very important factor in modern football.
“We focus on intelligence in terms of decision-making, first touch, final balls as well focus on other minor details like off-the-ball movements, support runs and defensive situations.
“The next level is to develop the players, make them understand the game, develop the technical and tactical aspect also and of course the social and psychological aspects.
“Players need to have better orientation and right attitudes. We have to instil discipline and let them know football is a process but the biggest goal is that Nigeria as a country to continue to produce the best quality of talents anywhere you can find anywhere in the world,” said Ezema.
