Interview with Carles Aleñá

Carles Aleñá is player and captain of the Spanish selection U17 and FC Barcelona Juvenil A, this year he is contesting the UEFA Youth League. After contacting him, Carles has answered a series of questions about the competition and experience it.

1.- Since when you play at FC Barcelona? You had played the youth league before?

I am player of Barcelona from the Benjamin category. This is my first year disputing this competition



2. It is the most important competition in which you participated?

We could say that Yes, at club level is the most important competition that I participated. Nationally I played one U17 European Championship. But clearly this is a very important competition for me and for the team and for Barcelona.



3. What is the feeling that causes you to play this competition?

It is a feeling of enthusiasm, desire to do well, desire to win. Are games that players love to play. It is a European competition against the best teams in the world, the closest thing to the Champions League. We have this opportunity and we have a great dream of doing a good job, to do something great for FC Barcelona and for us. It is a very long and difficult road but we are in a good line and we must continue in this way.



4. There any extra motivation by the club for this competition? 

Well Yes there's an extra motivation because they are very beautiful and very important games for the players. The extra motivation is more from the team as we go to Europe, we will go to the cities where the first team to play against his youth. We are representing the FC Barcelona and for all players is a great motivation. In addition the club let us play games in the mini-Stadium which is where the BarçaB plays its home games. It is very gratifying to see FC Barcelona fans traveling to these stages to give their support.



5. What is our aim this year?

Our goal is clear, we are in Barcelona, the best team in the world and our aspirations are always the maximum possible, that is to win the competition. Our goal is difficult and we are aware of it, but it is clear that we set goals and hopefully we can win this competition. Nothing more to worry about what is passing as group and from there we'll think about the title. Gently.



6. How about the fact alternatively you take play games with the U19 and BarçaB?

Personally I get along very well, I am very happy for the season opener. Playing with Barca B, with professional, it had always been a dream that you set yourself when you're little, but I am aware that I am player of Junior A and when I'm with my team I play with the same desire that in B.'m very happy how's everything going and I hope to continue to grow and achieve my dreams.


Thank you and good luck Carles!

Introducing ASPIRE Academy

Aspire Academy is a Sport Academy foundation based in Qatar, one of the most currently countries were the sports are having a huge population increasing.

This academy has founded back in 2004, and during this period of time has been providing all the athletes training and support, a part of a secondary education on parallel.

The Academy is not only about football, and become a professional player, is about more, they provide values to all the Athletes, they teach them how to face problems in the field, but as well, they show them how to face problems in the most difficult match, the real life.

Here below, the values that they describe on their own mission:

Accountability:

"We are accountable for using and developing our individual and collective capabilities to achieve outstanding results both for the individual and for the community."


Synergy and Teamwork:

"We work together collaboratively to achieve our strategy in a spirit of cooperation and support, valuing each other’s skills and contributions."


Professionalism:

"We fulfill our responsibilities to be leaders in our professional discipline through the application of best practices in a scientific, caring and committed way."

Integrity:

"We build trust through loyalty, honesty, ethical standards and fairness. We never take advantage of a privileged position for personal gain."

Respect:

"We honor sensitively the values, rights and needs of others and embrace the diversity provided by each individual, irrespective of culture, orientation, race, class or gender."


Excellence:

"We constantly research, create and develop new solutions to deliver outstanding results for our student-athletes, partners and society."


“We develop well educated sports champions. We foster Qatar society realizing a healthy, active lifestyle.” – Said Aspire Academy CEO’s

XX TORNEO DE LA LIGA PROMISES

In less than a month begins the twentieth edition of the tournament promises league. This tournament takes place from 20 years ago and in which the guests participating teams in the league. This tournament is carried out by sub-12 players in order to represent their club and get to make a name in the world of football. This tournament has served as a showcase for players like Iniesta, Ander Herrera, Gerard Deulofeu, Munir el-Haddadi…

In the last years, the tournament is open their doors to international teams and now every time more teams around Europe is taking part in this event. Juventus, Bayern Leverkusen or PSG are competing against Spanish la liga teams to win this tournament.

The importance of this event is amazing for the future of football, this tournament is full of scouts looking for the new Messi, the new Xavi or the new Cristiano Ronaldo, and we will see that future stars of our football had appeared before in this tournament showing their ability.

There had been some cases of players in this tournament that later on had take part in the UEFA youth League. The last case is Carles Alenya from FCBarcelona, choosen as the best player in the tournament in 2010 and now captaining the blaugrana team at uefa youth league.

It's a great business opportunity for the scouts, coaches and brands to see the possible future of their businesses.

Introducing Nike Academy in to UEFA Youth

Relationship between NikeAcademy and UEFA Youth

The Nike Academy, is a project founded back in 2010, by the company NikeInc.

The aim on this project is to give the chance to the most football talented kids of the world, to become a professional football player in a future, the requirements for get in to this academy are basically two: Be less than 20 years, and have talented football skills.

Some of them have been working so hard for become a profesional player, but unluckily they were refused for big and important clubs, well so, most of this refused players get a second chance to get in to the game again in the Nike Football Academy.

The Academy is based on St George's Park National Football Centre, in the UK, and they recently added their first sponsor, the prestigious PREMIER LEAGUE.

Most of this players get the chance of their life, and they go to major leagues do what they love, play football and make it your jobs, at least for a time.

Most of these "Students" from the Nike football academy are supplied to the UEFA Youth League, and after this releases, the Academy is getting some nice prestige in terms of trainings and preparing physically and mentally all these talented players.

Nike has no economic or business proposes in this project, all the support and resources they gave to the players are free. No lucrative proposes for then, they just want to give a passionate image about the football in front of the consumer.

Brief history of the competition

The UEFA Youth League was originally titled as the UEFA U-19 Champions League, during the two years of trial period of the competition and because of its format, completely equal to the Champions League competition system until the knockout phase (this phase has only single-leg ties, with the semi-finals and final played at neutral venues). This trial started in the season 2013/14 and in this season 2015/16 the competition has become bigger and opener, so 64 clubs, and not only the ones with the senior team in the Champions League, can enter the competition, as we explain in a pair of posts before. 

The origins of this competition are a bit polemical. The British media commented in the first year that this competition wasn’t created only with the laudable purposes that UEFA explains, according to British media, it was also created, or its main objective was, to "limit the growing influence of the NextGen Series* ". 

*The NextGen Series was basically another European football club competition for under-19 footballers founded in 2011. As the UEFA Youth League, it was designed to provide players with the opportunity to match themselves against other elite European footballers of their age group in a competitive environment. The competition was created by sports TV producer Justin Andrews, current Rangers manager Mark Warburton and current Brentford owner Matthew Benham.

And if that was another of the UEFA objectives, we have to recognize that they resulted very successful. The impact of the UEFA U-19 Champions League, even before the first year started, was so big that caused the immediately the suspension of the NextGen Series. On August 2013, organizers confirmed that the NextGen Series had been suspended for the 2013–14 campaign because of funding issues and lacking of competitive space since the creation of the now called UEFA Youth League. 

Before this decision, the NextGen Series organizers try a deal with UEFA with the objective of saving its competition, but were rejected by UEFA. The idea was that the participants of the NextGen Series were clubs that weren’t represented in the UEFA Youth League and the winner or the best performance academies could play in the next UEFA Youth League, basically transforming the NextGen Series in something similar to a qualification play-off. So, maybe the UEFA rejected the idea because was already thinking in implementing this new format of the two paths in the following years. Also they propose to run both leagues in tandem, and that the winners meet in a super-final, but UEFA also rejected.

Returning to the UEFA Youth League, this year the UEFA decide that the competition become a permanent UEFA competition. 

Since this year, the two UEFA Youth League finals have been these ones, both played in the Colovray Stadium of Nyon, Switzerland:

• 2013/14: FC Barcelona beating SL Benfica 3-0 (losing semi-finalist: Real Madrid and Schalke 04).

Munir El Haddadi with 11 goals and 5 assists in the tournament

• 2014/15: Chelsea FC beating Shakhtar Donetsk 3-2 (losing semi-finalist: AS Roma and RSC Anderlecht).

Dominic Solanke, with 12 goals and 4 assists in the tournament