The young Yellows Academy side continues improving day by day
Villarreal’s U10s F (Benjamín F) have surpassed all expectations in a season which still has not finished. The side coached by Manuel Parra and Ángel del Castillo, who also forms part of the Ladies B (Femenino B) coaching staff, are ninth in the table in a league of 14 teams. The team made its debut at U10s (Benjamín) level this year, and at this stage of the season, they have already tripled the points they got in the entirety of the last season, when they were the U8s G (Prebenjamín G).
The coaches have managed this feat by following the Yellow Submarine’s methodology. “We try and form the players under the parameters of the club, so that they are intelligent, autonomous footballers, with the ability to make decisions. We try to form not only players, but people too, so the results aren’t the most important thing. If they come, then it’s great, but we don’t focus on them when we’re analysing the team’s improvement,” explains Parra.
Of course good results are fruit of hard work, but they are not essential for this team made up of youngsters who are just excited to play: “We try to play a vertical style and to recover the ball in the opposition half. For us, it’s easier to finish our plays and defend counterattacks,” adds the young coach, from Burriana.
Both coaches believe it is important to make the most of the individual qualities that could improve collective play: “We analyse each player to improve their strong points and get them to use them to help their team-mates on the pitch. Because of that, they’re all necessary in the team, and no-one is indispensable,” underlines Parra.
The start of the league was not easy for them, losing every game until Matchday 7. But, from that date, something changed for these footballing youngsters. “We know that the learning process in formative football takes its time. Because of that, we didn’t focus on the table. We were only worried about what we were working on in training sessions at a group and individual level, and how that would transfer to matches. In fact, we always tell the boys, as an example of a game where we played well, the match against Sporting de Castelló. We ended up losing, but we left the game with a big smile on our face because of the great work we put in,” he says.
Regardless of the results, these youngsters are excited to represent Villarreal in each match. “We see their excitement in how they play, they come every day keen to get better,” concludes Parra.
The team is made up of the following players: Siro Renau Cabrera, Robert Romero García, Nicolás Mirón Berea, Carlos Felipe Forés, Andrés Druga Laura, Sergi Moliner Aragón, Josep Branchadell Casalta, Marc Expósito, Andrés Ciupe Konyu, Alessio Escrig García-Broch, Alfredo García-Petit Hernández, Iván Boix Carrasco, Alejandro Sales Miró, Adrián Ballester Puig.
