Football Tribe Academy: the Simple Joys of Growth by Football Tribe Malaysia

by Keeshannan Sundaresan, Chief Editor of Football Tribe Malaysia

I had almost forgotten what it felt like to observe slow, thorough and meaningful growth. The journalism industry is a fast-paced one. We are almost always rushing to break news, produce features, write columns and track the stats on these content. We’re almost always too eager to be the first - which is an absolutely fantastic thing, don’t get me wrong - but the by-product of that is we forget the simple joys of just observing and soaking in slow growth.

That’s what the entire Football Tribe academy experience has been like for me. I’m currently training the first batch of Football Tribe Academy students in Malaysia and it’s been nothing short of a refreshing experience.

The two boys we selected to be a part of this program came to us with zero knowledge on football journalism. They knew their football, had a decent understanding of how social media works and its significance in the modern contemporary world. But their understanding of the football journalism world was limited.

They struggled to write a news piece in the first couple of weeks. They were unorthodox, they never quite understood what to prioritize and they didn’t understand keywords. But they worked, and they worked, and they show initiative. Plenty of iniative, really.

So it’s no real surprise that in two months, both of them are comfortable enough writing match reports, analysis articles, as well as Player Ratings for games. They’ve worked on it a lot, in the last seven-eight weeks. But I don’t think the learning curve was exclusively for them.

In the last seven weeks, I have been reminded of why I chose to be a part of this injury. I was reminded of my pure, untempered love for the beautiful game. I was reminded of the key individuals (including our CEO, Cesare Polenghi) that believed in me, and stood by my growth process as a writer, when I first started out as an 18 year-old in 2012. And I was also reminded of how important is it for us to celebrate little milestones and small improvements.

The first batch of our academy students will serve the climax of their program by working with us on the World Cup. But I already cannot wait for the next batch of students, who will join us from September until the end of the AFF Suzuki Cup!

Feel the Passion
#JOINTHETRIBE

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