KOLKATA: With India now staying the grip of a World Cup’s ever-evolving dramatic narratives and we keep losing ‘sleep’ over who is going to win the Golden Boot race — Lionel Messi or Kylian Mbappe, our very own football is all set to take a small and quiet step forward with big ambitions.Come next week, three top teams of the just-concluded Reliance Foundation Development League (RFDL) — an under-21 football league — will be travelling to Fukuoka in Japan for an exposure trip and getting the measure of themselves against local talents.Once we have become champions in the RFDL, we are all eagerly waiting for this opportunity to test ourselves where we are against the best of the world. I was just looking at the three teams that we are going to play over there (in Japan) and checking out videos of their play. Just imagine that these teams have played against PSV U-18 and an Ajax side. And that itself shows what type of opponents we are going to face over there,” Bengaluru FC youth team coach Renedy Singh said in an exclusive interaction with TOI.Bengaluru FC emerged champions in the RFDL 2026 this April, defeating FC Goa in the final. Punjab FC finished third. These three Indian teams will each play matches against Japanese sides — Avispa Fukuoka, Sagan Tosu, Giravanz Kitakyushu and FC Baleine Shimonoseki — during the exposure trip.“I always say that it’s better to play against the best team rather than just playing our neighbouring countries time and again. Even if we play bad, we know where we stand. If we play well, we know where we are. So it’s the best thing to test ourselves,” added Renedy, a former India captain.The trip, according to FC Goa coach Israil Gurung, will be “an eye-opener.”Punjab FC coach Praveen Kumar echoed the sentiment. “It’s going to be a good exposure where we face superior teams and the challenge will be how we will adjust tactically, technically and physically,” he said.The RFDL had previously paved the way for the league’s U-21 players to showcase their talent in the Premier League Next Generation Cup in the United Kingdom.This time around, the top three teams have hollered in agreement that it will be a different ball game in Japan, now considered as the benchmark of Asian football.Back in 2004, Renedy was part of the Indian team which lost 0-4 at home and 0-7 away to Zico’s Japan in two legs of their World Cup qualifier. Renedy preferred to go back further and dwelled on a youth tournament in Suwon when his India team went down 0-2 to a Japanese side which had legendary midfielder Shunsuke Nakamura, who served the senior national team as an assistant coach in the 2026 World Cup.“In seven years since that (Suwon) match, we had lost 0-7 to Japan at the Saitama stadium. And the contrast was evident.“We still have a long way to go to achieve what Japan has been doing. They have been doing this for the past 10, 15 or even 20 years. They have changed the whole training system, you know, all the ideology, everything. And now look at where they are. Grassroots. Grassroots must be the focal point. Whatever the RFDL is doing, I wish this league gets bigger and it comes in six-seven months where they’re all under-19, under-18 teams and they can play week in, week out,” Renedy, who also managed BFC’s senior team in the Indian Super League, pointed out.It is with these expectations they would be arriving in the Land of Rising Sun, trying to learn tricks of the trade and applying them in the league back home. “Our youth gets really less number of games. Moreover, compared to European countries and even Japan, India is huge and we’ve a geographical challenge. But credit to RFDL for bridging the gap. Now they have tournaments with U-14 and U-16 players as well. But still the quality of games is less. If in India we get more competitive games, it will be good,” Punjab FC youth team coach Praveen maintained.All three coaches will be part of a coaching workshop during the tour of Fukuoka where ideas about different football styles, tactics and levels of competition will be exchanged.Gurung — who had won the I-League with Churchill Brothers and played for now defunct FC Pune City in the formative years of ISL — looked pretty excited at such a prospect.“Such programme is very much needed because we can learn the idea and get a first-hand experience of what they (Japan) have been doing for so many years. It would be a great help for our players to develop fast,” the former midfielder-winger said.
