For 19 year old Chandomaye, a footballer the terrace of her home in Pitchu Pillai Street in Mylapore is now her training space.
With videos playing on a small screen to guide her, the youngster is sweating it out daily.
Says the girl who has played for Tamil Nadu, “With the help of videos, I have been practising specific techniques for hours on the rooftop along with my younger sister.”
Sister, 16 year old Smrutimaye has also a played for the state.
Chandomaye’s daily routine also includes a 20-minute rigorous fitness training programme. The big terrace atop her apartment serves as an ideal zone to practise her football drills one of which is the skill of knocking down water bottles with the back heal.
In another session, she sharpens the skill of kicking the ball inside a waste bin or a cardboard box placed at a distance of three feet.
Having played for the state, she is now aiming for a University team slot next year.
While she continues to play active football including scoring goals for the college team at MOP Vaishnav, Chandomaye is now exploring a career in football coaching.
A few months ago, she made her entry into football coaching with a one-year contract with the World One Football Academy and was coaching some twenty 8-year-olds until the lockdown brought a temporary halt.
She has also just written a D-Licensing test, the first step towards a professional coaching career. She says that women’s football coaches are in great demand these days and that is an option she will consider once she completes her graduation, though at the moment the adrenalin pumps at its best when she scores a goal for her team.
Three months into her coaching assignment, she finds it extremely challenging “The attention span of tiny-tots I coach is very small and one has to find different ways to keep them engaged every minute of the session. We devised a Golden Sticker that is handed to the exceptional kid of the day. This motivates the kids.”
Just 19, the pre-teens are already looking at Chandomaye as their mentor not just in football but also in inculcating an everyday discipline in them.
She says that inside a quarter, parents have come to her acknowledging that their introvert kids have become extremely extrovert at home and in school and that their self-belief has increased in a short span of few months, something that Chandomaye is happy to hear.
Chandomaye is the daughter of Malola Kannan whose Divya Prabhandham religious audios are quite popular.
- Report by S. Prabhu
