Dhaka, January 29: One of the main goals of the football federation was to continue with elite player development when it launched the third phase of its development plan.

While a football crazy nation like Bangladesh wishes nothing more than to see the home team perform at the highest level of the game, that kind of progress does not happen overnight.

The Bangladesh Football Federation, being fully appreciative of the need for a rigorous regime, embarked on a new journey from 2017 with the third phase which will take Bangladesh through 2020 and beyond.

At this stage, elite player development is an indispensable part of the programme at every age level. It is at this level that the programme’s content is very important.

BFF technical director Paul Smalley, with almost three decades of experience in professional football, says, “The content must be good enough to help the players grow.” He points out that it must deal with social, physical, technical, technological and psychological aspects to ensure comprehensive development at all levels.

While Bangladesh’s age level players show much promise and could be said to be almost at par with their counterparts across the world, the same players falter at higher levels.

Experts, insiders and avid watchers point out that the small gap between Bangladesh and an advanced footballing nation, for instance Germany, keeps widening as the players become older.

It is very likely because the football system in those other countries has a lot more to offer than does Bangladesh in order to realise the true potential of players. While world football has advanced tremendously, Bangladesh has not been able to keep up despite the best intentions.

In today’s world, a well equipped stadium or educated and qualified coaches are given far more importance than they were in the past. Unfortunately, Bangladesh football had not been able to make the appropriate investment at the right time. But now it is.

The result is a gulf of difference between Bangladesh and other countries that regularly perform at the top levels.

The consistent performance of other countries, however, is the result of a robust system in place to ensure the continuous development and production of top level players.

This is where people like goalkeeping coach Ryan Sandford or head of physical conditioning John Whittle come in.

They have not only earned appropriate academic degrees, they also have the required qualification and certification to add to the federation’s pool of human resource.

More importantly, the foreign personnel, having worked across the world have very good conception of what a world class football system should be like and how far Bangladesh must go.

Given that the primary objective is player development, the primary job of these personnel is also on the field. But as such, their role is to assist the local coaching staff of the federation. They will be adding a more modernised and systematic approach to our historical coaching practices.

These personnel will also prove to be crucial in putting in place a comprehensive all encompassing footballing programme that will start producing top class player consistently.