Over the last four years, Argentine national Juan Marcos Troia and his Brazilain wife Priscila Barros Pedroso have made Kashmir their home, despite hardships. The couple lives with their three daughters in a Srinagar who speak go to a local school and speak Urdu and Kashmiri, besides Spanish and Portuguese in pure Latin American accent. By their looks, they just pass off as any other Kashmiri.

However, the small Latin American home in the midst of Kashmiri locality is often buzzing with activity. Local youngsters visit in groups to learn teaches the nuances of football from Marcos. Pedroso cooks Brazilian food for the guests.

Both Pedroso and his wife are trained football coaches.

“Ours is a marriage of enemies,” remarks Pedroso playfully, referring to the football rivalry of Argentina and Brazil. Thousands of miles from their home, the couple runs a football academy in Indian side of Kashmir, whose population awaits UN Security Council plebiscite since 1948.

The International Sports Academy Trust (ISAT), set up by the couple in 2003, started off from coaching programs in India’s capital city New Delhi with the help of Brazilian sponsor, Sports Network. However, Troia didn’t find much love for the game in the metropolis.

In 2007, it started its programs in Kashmir in association with Jammu and Kashmir Football Association where he has trained over 1,000 boys. Logistics and grounds are provided by the football association, while Troia provides training free of cost.

“In Delhi, I had been training Iranian and Afghan refugees, who are better suited for the game. Then, I discovered Kashmiris who are more like them (Central Asians). The weather, food, almost everything, is suited for football,” says Marcos, explaining his preference to shift to Kashmir.

Football has been a popular game in Kashmir, but the rising popularity of cricket, two decades of conflict, and the shrinking open spaces have sidelined it especially among the new generation.

A trained coach from a football-crazy nation was perhaps all that was needed to infuse a fresh spirit in the game and take it to new levels. Soon Troia saw boys thronging his coaching sessions, and pleading for admissions in his academy.

He enrolled some 400 boys the first year, refusing entry to even greater number of requests.

“Yes, I get so many request, so many applications, and I just can’t take them all. But I have been trying to give my best, and expand the network as much as possible,” says Marcos.

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