The Indian Women’s national team is currently preparing for their second friendly match against a Netherlands XI on Sunday. India lost the first match 0-2 at Kolhapur on Thursday [+ read more] and coach Anadi Barua’s team is hoping to give the Dutch visitors a good fight at Navi Mumbai [+ read more] tomorrow.

The Netherlands team touring India is the so-called “KNVB CTO Team” which is not the senior women’s national team contrary to reports in the recent days. The “KNVB CTO Team” is part of the Royal Dutch Football Association’s (Koninklijke Nederlandse Voetbal Bond – KNVB) Youth Development Programme called KNVB Jeugd Plan Nederland (JPN) in cooperation with the CTO Amsterdam (www.ctoamsterdam.nl).

The Centrum voor Topsport en Onderwijs (CTO / Centre for Education and Topsport) is based in Amsterdam and it is run as a residential national sports academy providing the best facilities to budding sport stars who are at the verge to make it to the senior level. The best talents from the Netherlands live together at the CTO Amsterdam and they are provided a full-time training programme. Training, studying and living in an optimal combination with minimal travel time is the main objective of the KNVB’s initiative at the CTO.

The “KNVB CTO” Netherlands XI is touring India as part of another initiative by the KNVB called “ClubLinking” (www.clublinking.nl). The initiative has the idea to link a Dutch club with a club, team or project in a developing country and to learn to know each others culture, build friendships and acquire knowledge about global issues such as peace building, conflict management, gender differences, climate change and human rights.

The CTO Amsterdam has linked up with Mumbai-based NGO “Magic Bus” and the team has already run a few clinics and social activities in the past few days during their stay in India. The Indian kids enjoyed the activities very much and interacting with the Dutch team has already helped them to learn a lot.

The CTO Amsterdam is a role model concept which would be also a great one to see in India. It would help to gather the talented sport stars of the future and to provide them all needed facilities to mature not only as a sports professional but also as a human being.