– training youngsters for professional careers 

By Telesha Ramnarine 

LOCAL sportsman Eon DeViera is quite passionate about goalkeeping in Guyana and wants to do all that he can to train youngsters in a manner that can see them achieving a professional or even an international career.

While a lot of emphasis is placed on the actual football sport, DeViera, a national goalkeeper coach with the Guyana Football Federation (GFF), feels that not enough is being done to train goalkeepers, whom he said are usually expected to create all of the magic on the field.

Having a love for football for as long as he can remember, the idea came to DeViera to establish a non-governmental organisation that can allow him to help youths between the ages of eight and 13 in the goalkeeping field.

In 2018, the 42-year-old started the Eon DeViera Goalkeeping Academy Inc. which became registered in 2019, and which is now housed at the YMCA.

“We want to nurture and develop young goalkeepers and our main focus is to create behaviour change in them. It’s not just to concentrate on the sport, but to help to create rounded individuals; to prepare them for life and for an international career,” Eon expressed during an interview with the Pepperpot Magazine.

He said that apart from focusing on the sport only, attention needs to be given to other vital aspects of it. “In sports, we tend to focus entirely on the sport, but the sport for a professional cannot stand by itself.”

For instance, sportsmen and women who are very aggressive would require special attention. “A lot of the players come from various backgrounds, so we want them to learn public speaking, non-violent behaviour, etc. Drug abuse sessions are also very important, because the youths are exposed to drugs that are easily accessible,” he said.

The academy has three trainers with about 23 youths at the moment, both male and female. They meet on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday afternoons, and the training is for free! “I’m doing it as an NGO (non-governmental organisation) because we don’t want to lose anyone because they can’t afford it. In many cases, the guys who can’t afford it are the most talented.”

Eon said the focus is also on helping the youths to acquire the right technical ability since this has been lacking in the goalkeeping department in Guyana. “For all the years, goalkeepers have been neglected. Normally, you have the teams practising while the goalkeepers are just put in a corner with no one to work with them. Yet, when the game is playing, they expect the goalkeepers to create all the magic. But no energy is put into giving them the right technical ability. So that’s one of our focuses; to be able to feed them into the national programme.”

The academy wants to get all of the at-risk youths involved, and the ones who are not so fortunate. “We want to show them that they have an alternative. We don’t want it to be looked at just as a sport, but as a career opportunity,” Eon said.

While being very passionate about goalkeeping, Eon also enjoys working with young people and taught for several years at the Government Technical Institute. “You see the need for it and you see what sports can really do for young people and families. We shouldn’t limit any of these youths from where their potential can lead them; they can end up in any part of the world,” he observed.

Speaking about the importance of goalkeepers in a game, he reflected that in world football, there has never been a team that won the world cup or any major tournament without having one of the best goalkeepers.

And so he is proud that his academy is the first of its kind in Guyana.