When he started playing soccer he was 12 years old. If he had not done it before, it was not due to lack of desire or vocation – on the contrary. The reason is that at that time there were no girls’ teams and the idea of being the only player in a group of boys was something that her grandmother, her biggest fan, did not like very much. It was another time, and although someone dares to say, as the song says, that 20 years is nothing, if we talk about women’s football, 20 years is a lifetime.
It is an anonymous story, but a common story, especially if we travel to the end of the nineties and even the beginning of the two thousand. At that time, there were already many girls with the dream of being soccer players, but who did not dare to take the step because on many occasions they could only play with children, and that meant a huge wall. There were also references, such as Marimar Prieto or Tere Saurí, but there was no focus pointing in the same direction as those players.
The women’s section of Valencia CF –first team and quarry– has more than 10 years of history
It has been necessary to change some things to turn the situation around: women on – and off – the field that inspire the little ones to want to play and train, a society that normalizes and supports equality, and a structure capable of betting on them and not let go of the hand to make easy what should always have been – playing soccer. In this way, the exception is becoming the rule. “We want all the players of the women’s grassroots teams to have the same working conditions and the same opportunities as the players of the men’s teams,” confesses Sean Bai, general director of the VCF Academy.
This is something that not only remains in words, but is translated into facts: the VCF Academy integrates, since this season, all the women’s grassroots football of Valencia CF, which is training and competing in the facilities of the Ciutat Esportiva de Paterna with the same conditions and resources as men’s grassroots football.
The gear that moves today has taken years to start, as shared by Jesús Oliva, Valencia CF Women’s sports director. “All categories are very important and have the same value. The base is very important for a player to have options and when she reaches the top, what happened before does not happen, which was not fully formed on a physical, technical, emotional level, etc. ”, he values. At club ché, as he explains, training consists of stages and, depending on the player’s readiness, they advance to the next phase.
This year, six players trained in the Valencia CF women’s quarry have gone up to do the preseason and two are in first-team dynamics
Although the women’s section of the club – first team and quarry – has a little more than a decade of history, this year has been a turning point and, consequently, a boost. That includes facilities, but also a deployment of human resources at their disposal since they are small. “For example, there is a person in charge of their initiation in physical education so that, when they are a little older, we can give them a little more work, more strength, and they are prepared,” says the Valencia CF Women’s sports director.
“We are going to make an important improvement”, anticipates Oliva, who remembers perfectly those first years in which the material resources available were “balls, cones and little else.” Now in all the parties they have a mobile unit ready. Another thing that has changed is the cost involved. This year families no longer have to pay to play soccer. No talented girl is left behind for not being able to take it on. “We want the best players and parents see that we help them to train,” he highlights.
“It is very important to detect them from a very young age so that with our methodology they become professionals”
Nurturing those lower categories is essential and recruitment is a key element. “For us it is very important to detect them from a very young age so that with our methodology they become professionals”, describes the Valencia CF Women’s sports director. “We have a technical secretariat and recruitment, although even cadets the coaches help us a lot when they go to play. If they detect an interesting player, they let us know ”, he adds. The challenge is shared: “Every year we have to incorporate more players trained from below.”
This is the challenge but also “a great opportunity to integrate the female academy within the professional structure of the male academy. Women’s soccer is part of our VCF family. It is important that they feel like part of our family. We are committed to working together and optimizing the project, and to educate people and train footballers, ”adds Sean Bai.
The objective of Real Oviedo is to build a team around the quarry and improve it with some signings
They are on the right track. This year six players have gone up to do the preseason, of which two are in first team dynamics. A jump that also works from the women’s individual development department: “We help the player on a technical, tactical, physical and psychological level, so that when the moment comes she is prepared, she is not afraid and does not make a world of her. Three or four years from now, we want 50% of the first team to be players formed by us, who feel what it is to be a Valencian player ”, concludes Oliva.
Safe value
“Our bet is on the quarry: it is a safe value,” agrees Javier Cordero, who landed as sports director of Real Oviedo Femenino at the beginning of 2021. A few months have passed, but he is clear about the place that the women’s football quarry occupies within the club and what is the way forward to strengthen it. “The objective is to build a team around the quarry and from there improve it with some signings,” he shares.
“Our challenge is to make academic training compatible with the training requirement”
The challenge is not only sporting, but it goes further. To promote and encourage the quarry, Cordero has the recipe: “Our challenge is to reconcile academic training with the requirement of training.” Being able to project a future full of possibilities and where the player has the opportunity to grow and not give up, means that today the referents are very close to the smallest. “In our club, Isina, Igle, Alejandra and Marina Crespo are fundamental players because they are a reflection for the young women,” Cordero sums up.
The objective of quarries such as Real Oviedo is to make academic training compatible with the requirement of training
Becoming like them is the final goal, but as in any other sport the road can be full of unforeseen events and for Cordero there is a key factor: the family environment and its social environment. “Traditionally, the support of families has been very important in grassroots football. And in the case of the Real Oviedo players it is not a different case ”. The work that fathers, mothers, siblings, grandparents do today may be more in the shadows, but it has a fundamental weight.
‘Late’ training
In another Asturian team, Real Sporting, the women’s team has existed for 25 years. Now, in football it happens as in life and you cannot start the house with the roof: that it exists is not synonymous with having a quarry that nourishes it and that is something that they have had to work from the base. “We started from the fact that the girls who came to us 20 years ago and who played and liked to play soccer had started to touch the ball when they were 15, 16 years old or older,” explains Marcos Costales, coordinator of the club’s formative soccer.
“They arrived at a very adult age, lacking due to lack of training at the base,” he adds. Something that has already been corrected. “Today they start working at the age of seven and eight, which means that the players who reach the first team do so with a training that there was not before and that makes a big difference, in technical, practical, physical aspects, etc.”, he values the coordinator of the formative soccer of the rojiblanco team.
“20 years ago the girls who arrived had started to touch the ball when they were 15, 16 years old or older and lacking due to lack of training at the base”
Seven years ago they started a medium-long-term project: creating women’s teams within their club structure. Each year creating a new team until reaching the current four, the A in Challenge, the B in the first national, the C in Regional, and a whole child of girls but who competes against boys. “It is a project under construction, but with good results. We still have a long way to go, but we are very happy with what we are achieving, ”says Costales.
“We have players who have started at the base with us and are now in the first team. That is the goal, “he says. “We can iron out the deficiencies that a player may have so that when she reaches the first team she contributes as much as possible. That is the gain from the years of work they have behind their backs ”, he points out. A methodology 100% shared with the men’s team. We are not only talking about DNA, but about facilities, medical, technical, etc. “At Real Sporting the commitment to women is total,” he clarifies.
At Real Sporting seven years ago they bet on creating women’s teams within their club structure
To simmer
The goal is close, to reach the highest category and do it “with Sporting DNA”, but there is still a long way to go because a good quarry is simmered. Ingredients have. This year a player who started training in her childhood plays for the Spanish Under-19 National Team. “We are doing something right because they look at our players from above,” says Costales.
A good ‘factory’ that aspires, yes, to retain them and take them to the top. “What we want are home players. People who defend the shield, the colors, and feel them. Make the club feel like yours. Let them come from the grassroots with our sports methodology and get impregnated with rojiblanco. It is a feeling of belonging ”, shares Costales.
A player who was trained in the Real Sporting quarry now plays for the Spanish Under-19 National Team
He has plenty of reasons. “The capacity for sacrifice and dedication that these players have is different from that of the male. They are much tougher. They endure much more, they endure the pain more. In fact, you have to send them to stop because if it’s because of them they won’t stop. I tell them: if you are overloaded, stop, because if you don’t stop, it will end in injury. They hold out to keep playing ”, Costales observes. Perhaps it is a claim, an engine that leads them to play everything they can on behalf of all those women who history has not left them.