Days before the kick-off of the biggest football tournament in India came the announcement of the country’s longest duration football league, which could mark a rethink of how India introduces its young to the sport. Make that very young, says a report in the Kangla Online, quoting the BBC.

The Young Legends League, comprising Under-12 five versus five matches, will be held over more than six months from November in one of India’s smallest but most energised footballing states — Mizoram — where the game is rooted in the community. It is the first concrete piece of evidence of the reboot of the grassroots development structure that was planned with the announcement of the All-India Football Federation through the creation of “babyleagues” — a regular calendar of matches for children from the age of five years.

The Baby Leagues project intends to give match play opportunities to Indian children well below the conventional age of 12 or 13 years when they are taken to football with the aim to get them into the system. It is based on the leagues in South American countries, for example, that churn out footballers without the facilities or formalised development structures in Europe.

They were expected to be launched in July in traditional footballing hubs like Bengal and Maharashtra, but have not been able to get off the ground. Mizoram has however, struck out on its own.

One match will be 40 to 60 minutes in duration. Its venue is the Chhangphutg Ground in Champhai, headquarters of Mizoram’s eastern-most district, a seven-hour journey from Aizawl and less than 20km from the Myanmarese border.

The YLL was announced along with a 10-year memorandum of understanding signed in Aizawl between the Mizoram Football Association, and the 8One Foundation, a private body working in the North-east on social development programmes, including sport. In 2014 Mizoram won the Santosh Trophy. Last year 49 of the 91 I-League first division players came from North Mizoram.

This year, Aizawl FC pulled off the biggest surprise in Indian football by winning the I-League.