Maulana Azad boys practice football late in the night

Given their academic commitments throughout the day, Maulana Azad's U-16 team only finds time to practice after 7pm

Having training sessions under floodlights is an unusual practice for a school team. But that's exactlyu00a0what Maulana Azad (Byculla)u00a0 boys do given their hectic academic schedule through the day. And it seems to be working quite well too, going by their 1-0 victory over Don Bosco (Vikhroli) in a Nike MSSA U-16 inter-school football match at Azad Maidan yesterday.



"The boys attend school in the first half of the day and then go for their classes later in the afternoon. So practice at the YMCA ground begins only late in the evening at 7pm and goes on till about 10pm," explained Maulana Azad's coach Abdul Aziz.

In fact, the boys seems to have adapted to the night so well that the coach believes that if there ever is a night inter-school tournament, they would win it hands down.

"Give our boys a chance to play in the night and we could well defeat any team by a huge margin," he said.

Although the Byculla side managed only one goal against Don Bosco's, there is no dearth of talent in the squad.
The reason being that the youngsters are often made to play against other senior teams that come to practice at the YMCA. Aziz feels this only make his boys tougher.u00a0u00a0

u00a0"They can learn a lot from the bigger boys," he said.

Meanwhile yesterday's lone goalscorer Shiekh Imran dreams of playing for India one day.

"I want to play at the highest level," he said of his ambition.