“If a family doesn’t pay the fee, they offer to do the cleaning” | Relief

At Jorge Juan Sports Club, children will have to leave what has been their home for seven years. Its football grounds in Seville’s Amate district have been put up for concession again, and the city council has chosen another offer. Four hundred players and 24 teams that will have to relocateThe Rebook Sports Club Football Academy in La Finca (Madrid) will soon be renovated to improve the already very good conditions.

In Relevo, we visited both clubs to find out what football is like in Spain’s most and least prosperous urban areas. Some census tracts in Seville’s Cerro Amate district are between 1% with the lowest average net income per household in Spainaround 15,000 euros (although there are others where it is twice as much), according to the Atlas of Income Distribution of the National Institute of Statistics. At the other extreme is the La Finca area (Pozuelo de Alarcón), with prices approaching 90,000 euros..

Through testimonies Alvaro Orellana, coordinator of Jorge Juan, and Diego Alvarez, sports director and coach of the Rebook Sports Club.We know what the daily life of both clubs and the children they host is like. Opportunities, resources and aspirations change, but not their attitude towards the game or their teammates..

“I wouldn’t change anything,” is the phrase repeated by the Sevillian children we asked. Not the headlights, one half-broken and another outdated, nor the lack of security, which has cost him several robberies. The same goes for the dressing rooms, even though they prefer to shower at home. “I would have different colors of equipment, that would be cool,” says Antonio, one of the players, but he is “fine.” They do not question the problems associated with football. Sometimes there is a lack of resources that other teams take for granted.

“I’ve been a Jorge Juan player since I was a kid,” says Alvaro Orellana in a makeshift office in a warehouse they’ve temporarily abandoned. His brother played until he was an adult, and his father is now president. It’s a family club, founded in 1979. In fact, the women’s division has evolved with the sisters registered. There are currently 73 girls wearing the colours of the Sevillian team.

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That feeling for Jorge Juan is not the only legacy. “We have a huge box full of boots from former players who gave them to us when they retired,” says Orellana. Others include shin guards, underwear, T-shirts, backpacks, boot holders and stuffed animals. Everyone comes to the rescue if a boy cannot go to training or does not have basic equipment.If a family can’t provide the material or pay the fee, they offer to do the cleaning, painting, or welding. Helping each other out is part of the club’s DNA.

Reebok Sports Club is, at least in football terms, only five years old. Several families also build their history: the brand belonged to Carlos Sainz and his brother until they were acquired by the sports complex chain David Lloyd Leisure. Diego Alvarez was brought from Juventus by the family of Radomir Antic.In some cases, players are also descended from Atletico Madrid, Real Madrid or Getafe players. But it is not blood ties that hold the club together, but the goal of reaching the top.

“Not only did we start winning, but we created a distinctive character, we started playing football in a very concrete way, which is admired by many clubs, many families, many children,” Alvarez says in a room at the stadium. These families, mainly from the Pozuelo and Boadilla areas, can use the swimming pool, saunas or gym on their premises.but they can only see their children at the beginning and end of the training. Their children are not only there to have fun, but also to become the best, and losing concentration is not part of their plans.

Alvarez has turned down several offers, including from professional and semi-professional football in other countries, as he places his bet on the Reebok Sports Club. Let’s say you’re lucky enough to have a “good 40-hour contract.” “For those of us who feel football with such enthusiasm and passion, it is incredible to be able to get a contract like this.”Explain. The club also has doctors, physiotherapists, nutritionists and psychologists. Yes, they lack women’s teams. At the moment, they don’t have “that full group of ten, twelve, thirteen players” to achieve that.

Jorge Juan’s reality is the life of a local team that survives thanks to the will of its members and symbolically pays its coaches. Orellana is not only the team’s coordinator: he also takes care of the stadium and the artificial turf.“I left my job for personal reasons and it just so happened that they were looking for a facility manager,” he explains. He now juggles that with another job at a water park to survive.

The methodologies that Alvarez mentions at his club, given his role as coach, are a set of technical details that also show the differences between clubs. “We work very, very, very, very intensely, but always with the ball,” he says. Each student can get an additional hour of a specific training plan if they wish, using the latest equipment and technology.

. Using software, they measure their performance data at the individual and team level. “Work and determination” are the words Nacho, one of the children, uses to sum up Alvarez’s lessons as a coach.

Mere intent or payment of membership fee is not enough to join the Reebok Sports Club. “We don’t take everyone, we look based on our needs”“,” says Alvarez. His scholarship department focuses on “kids at home who have had it tough,” as well as kids from abroad who have more challenges but “natural talent.” At Jorge Juan, “the only requirement” for participation is fun, although Reebok Sports Club maintains that priority as well. “We always have fun when we play with the ball and we don’t get nervous” – this is the most important lesson for Jorge, a Pozuelo player..

Alvarez says La Finca’s visiting teams are influenced by location, conditions, the presence of “certain players or famous people” and their method of play. He notices differences in “this antics, this antics” in certain conditions, and sometimes his boys get “comments for coming from where they came from.” The economic differences between teams from regions with different economic realities do not go unnoticed.“Sports equipment, materials, more specialized exercise machines… it is noticeable in many aspects, not only in the social aspect,” explains the Amate coordinator.

Verbal violence is prohibited in the “decalogue of conduct” handed out to family members and players at the start of the season at Reebok Sports Club, Alvarez said. He cites cases of “excessive encouragement of children with the wrong vocabulary,” as well as “giving children completely opposite technical and tactical instructions.” what they have been trained to do, another red line. Having a shorter history, they have not been subjected to “physical abuse” or extreme cases of “physical abuse” so far.bullyingor “minor persecution,” which Orellana documents in Seville. “The first value we instill is respect, because we live in a difficult area where children spend a lot of time on the street,” says the Sevillian.

Orellana is aiming for a “slightly more professional” future without losing its essence as a “neighborhood club, a family club where everyone has a place.”. Some got off the boat; others managed to move to important teams, like Sevilla in the case of two boys recently. “They keep coming every day. The only difference is that they play in a different shirt, but they take their friends, their family, their home,” says the coordinator.

“To exist day after day,” according to Orellana, is Jorge Juan’s greatest achievement. “The feeling that arises in them from the first minute until the end of life” is the greatest virtue for the coordinator. “Jorge Juan is our family, our home, what hurts us, what unites us every day”In one area or another, with more or less resources, they will continue to be a “values ​​club” that prepares not only for football, but also for life.

The Reebok Sports Club will cease to exist as such and will therefore change its name. It will become part of a club with great ambitions, which Alvarez keeps secret. “It will be a leap not only quantitatively, but also professionally,” says the sports director. They will continue to contribute to great youth teams such as Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid. “The fact that they visit you, that they say a few words, makes me especially happy, because that’s what’s left for us, the coaches, so that these kids have good memories of the time spent with them.”“He loves us very much, he is very kind to us and he trains very well,” says Guillermo, another of his sons.

Everyone wants to be a footballer when they grow up, but only Amate’s children mention other professions as Plan B. “A football player, and if he didn’t become a football player, then a policeman”” says Juan Carlos. In Pozuelo, the stars of Primera are closer. Although Alvarez avoids mentioning the names of footballers linked to the club, his students mention links such as Toni Kroos. “His son, who plays there, came to our team and that’s where it all started,” says Caetano, a player for the Reebok sports club.

Jorge Juan managed to become a refuge. ““I think we are doing important social work in getting kids off the streets who might experiment with drugs or other conflict areas.”– says Orellana. The concerns of the Reebok sports club are different: it has embarked on an ambitious project aimed at further development.

But, beyond the economic differences in their environments, both clubs have achieved their main goal: to give players the pleasure of football. These are two realities a priori very different, in which children weave the same story.