Around 80 kids took part in the tryout for the FC Barcelona Escola football camp yesterday at the Cebu City Sports Center (CCSC).
The young football enthusiasts are all aiming to fill in the eight scholarship slots allotted for the five-day football camp slated Oct. 26 to 30 at a yet to be determined venue.
The football camp aims to contribute in the development of football in the Philippines. The training will be patterned after FC Barcelona’s philosophy and methodology. Its main objective is the integral training of the students in FC Barcelona’s values and methods.
The tryout was headed by the local organizers Nicholas, Michael and Paulus Reyes of Team Socceroo while FCB Escola’s technical director for Asia-Pacific Carles Martin was there to observe.
“We at FC Barcelona want to create more activities abroad and this kind of activity is a great for us to discover new talents [who can] eventually become the next Leonel Messi and Alexander Neymar,”
Martin said during yesterday’s launching at the Cebu Parklane International Hotel. “We want to create more activities here in Asia and let everyone experience the Barca way.”
Joining them yesterday were Cebu Football Association (CFA) president Ricky Dakay and CFA’s grassroots development program head Raffy Musni.
The eight kids who will qualify for the five-day training camp will be trained by two FC Barcelona coaches who will fly in from Barcelona, Spain.
Martin said they will also be getting some help from four more local coaches.
“We are very grateful they chose Cebu. We all know that Cebu has a busy football calendar since last year and this one is a very welcome addition to it. We will give our utmost support to FCB Escola and we hope that this will become successful,” said Dakay.
Last year, FCBE impressively launched its first two camps in Alabang and Taguig.
“There were a lot of foreign participants in the first two editions of the training camp and we expect more to come but majority of the participants [now] are locals, including football scholars,” Reyes said.
Musni said local organizers are still looking for a suitable venue for the five-day training camp.