A mini artificial turf ground located on the east of Male, adjacent to the Hiyfaseyha Maidhaan, was seen buzzing with the presence of around 30 budding footballers, training under two coaches, of the Friends Football Family Academy. This has been a common sight in all of Male's artificial turfs, which remain occupied by aspiring players -- from different academies, the clubs' youth teams and the school teams -- till midnight since morning, as early as 6:00 am.

The lively presence of those kids clearly gives an impression of Maldives' passion regarding football, which is the number one game in the islands. Even though Maldives had once been on the receiving end of embarrassing results – for instance, having suffered 0-8 and 0-5 defeats at the hands of Bangladesh in the mid-1980s -- but those days are now a distant memory for the football-obsessed Maldivians.

Maldives are now a force to be reckoned with in South Asia, who have won all four matches against Bangladesh, played over the last 18 years.

Ahmed Shareef, the technical director of Football Association of Maldives (FAM), expressed his pride and contentment regarding the current state of Maldives' football to The Daily Star on Saturday. 

"We are pleased that Maldives currently has more than 30 active academies, whereas it was five to six academies previously. Now the appointed coaches there possess coaching certificates to handle the academy properly, where one coach handles 10 kids at the grassroots level and works on the technical aspects of each individual," said Shareef.

Maldives have now more than 400 hundred AFC-certified coaches (30 A-licensed ones, 100 Bs and 300 Cs), of whom ninety percent are working relentlessly with the FAM, private academies and clubs. Each budding footballer has to pay in the range of 200-1000 Rufiyaa (Approx. Tk 1000-5000) monthly to learn the tricks of the trade from coaches, who are handsomely paid by the academies.

"But we can't provide quiet minutes to the youth footballers on the pitches (FAM turf grounds) because of our very limited resources. FAM only has two turf pitches. The boys get three days in a week with only a 30-minute session per day. It is like Heathrow Airport," said Shareef, who is well known in Maldives football fraternity as Dunga.

The technical director informed that, ever since the humiliating 0-17 defeat at the hands of Iran in 1997,  the government has been financially and directly assisting the FAM in developing the country's football ever since, by installing artificial turfs across the atolls, for example.

"We've strong school competitions, from which a lot of talented players emerged. The FAM has also introduced the leagues for U-12 and U-14, for those who belong to the academies," said Shareef, who has been involved with football for the last 20 years, while he further informed that the FAM has five age-group teams, from which the players move into the national team's pipeline. 

"We're delighted to see our national team's players being technically strong and performing well in Asia. We know the players' strength, technical abilities and mental conditions and always act in line with suggestions of a 20-member technical committee, which is also observing the SAFF Championship.

"You can say that the current national squad is the outcome of our system. We started the process long ago," said Shareef, who is also an AFC coaching instructor.

Replying to a query, Shareef said: "We may not produce good results at age-group competitions but those players become technically equipped before entering the national team. When players move up the ranks of U-21 or U-23 level, they have already worked on their limitations."

Shareef concluded by informing that their coaches do not interfere with a player's position at grassroots and instead they only focus on instilling the core principles of the beautiful game in each footballer.