Milo-FCB Road to Barcelona Philippine Training Camp begins

Paref Springdale’s Ethan Jacob Roxas talks about his experience last year, where he was one of the nine boys who was fortunate to get chosen in the Milo-FCB Road to Barcelona.
CDN PHOTO/JUNJIE MENDOZA)

“JUST enjoy, do your best and don’t change your attitude,” are the words of advice that 11-year-old Ethan Jacob Roxas of Paref Springdale for the 160 boys and girls aged 10 to 12 years old from all over the Philippines who were fortunate enough to be chosen for the second year of the Milo-FCB Road to Barcelona Philippine Training Camp happening from Sept. 8 to 9 at the Cebu City Sports Center.

Roxas was among the nine players who were chosen last year for the ultimate, once in a lifetime experience of their young lives—that is to fly to Barcelona, Spain for a nine-day training camp at Camp Nou, the home of FC Barcelona, where the likes of football stars Leo Messi, Gerard Pique and Samuel Umtiti train and play.

Aside from the training, they also learned tricks under the likes of Eric Abidal, a Barca defender and a World Cup veteran who last played for France in 2010, and got to watch a world-class football match.

This is the kind of world class opportunity that the values-driven partnership of Milo Philippines and Futbol Club Barcelona (FCB) is continuing to offer.

Just like last year, Milo and FCB will once again bring deserving footballers, this time seven, to Spain for the life-changing and ultimate experience of their lives. Of the seven, one will get to go for free courtesy of Milo Philippines.

The seven will be chosen from this weekend’s 160 selected for the training camp.

This time, Milo and FCB are working in cooperation with the Philippine Football Federation and the Cebu Football Association (CFA) to bring the experience closer to a wider number of kids by choosing to hold the Philippine training camp here in Cebu.

“We want to share the event with more people in the Visayas. Most of the football events happen here and the way they do it here is so organized,” said Milo Philippines Consumer Marketing Manager Robbie de Vera, who added that they did not only choose Cebu because it is a football hotbed but also because of its strategic location which makes it accessible to players coming from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.

Of the 160, about 90 comes from Cebu while the rest come from as far as Koronadal, Siquijor, Davao, Manila and Bacolod.

This weekend’s training will be handled by coaches from the FCB Escola Youth Football Academy from Barcelona, Spain — Jordi Aguilar Roca and Albert Batalla Fernandez, both UEFA A licensed coach, which means that even if the selected players will not be fortunate enough to make it as one of the seven players, they will still get to experience the Barca way of play, which is still a once in a lifetime experience.