- Luis Olivos, director of the Spanish club’s academy, explained that one of the essential objectives of the institution is training in values through sport.
Dominick, 7 years old, and his father, Alberto Vargas, arrive at 3:45 pm to the training sessions of the under-9 group of the Betis Academy Venezuela, at the El Placer School facilities in La Trinidad, Baruta municipality. There a field welcomes the students with flags and posters alluding to the Spanish club.
Real Betis was one of the first European clubs to install a minor soccer academy in Venezuela and seeks to train young talent with methodologies used in Spain.
While his son trains, Alberto says that they arrived at the academy in 2023. He considers that he has noticed considerable progress in Dominick’s soccer training, but one of the reasons why he has remained is that the institution has become an entertainment space for your family.
It is a process that truly leaves a lot of satisfaction, but also many sacrifices, because he attends games on Saturdays and Sundays and one has to be constantly with them and also comply with the soccer practice schedules, always be punctual and encourage him. always to do things right. But I always tell him that the most important thing is that he has fun,” said Alberto Vargas in an interview for El Diario.
The representative confesses that his family is a sports fan. His other two children also do sports activities weekly, so Alberto’s daily life is immersed in that world.
He emphasizes that beyond the trophies, medals and recognitions, he likes that Dominick can learn things like camaraderie, loyalty and discipline as part of his training at the academy.
A dream that started as a soccer camp
Luis Olivos, director of the Betis Academy Venezuela, said that in 2022 his team contacted the Marketing Director of Real Betis in Spain to set up a soccer camp in Venezuela.
“Betis has an international program in which they not only go to camps, but they form academies and it is present in 13 countries, so they proposed to us to bring the camp and then we had a period of 45 days to establish an academy, because that is the way they work,” Olivos explained in an interview for The Diary.
The director explained that before this process they had to take a training course for the coaches, in which they were taught the work methodology used by Real Betis in Spain.
“85 people came to that course and from that group, the Spanish experts profiled those who they considered to be the best in the course to form the academy’s work team,” he noted.
The news of the Betis Academy in Venezuela
The sports institution has around 150 students participating in the Pipo Rossi League, one of the main minor soccer leagues in Greater Caracas. They are also working on the development of a sports center for the operation of the academy.
The Betis Sport Park, in Los Samanes, has not yet opened its doors, but will soon be the main headquarters of the academy in the country.
We were given the opportunity for a new sports center. It is a private land where we are developing two 7-a-side soccer fields and it will also have a gym, restaurant, a nutrition office, a physiotherapy area and the first stage could be ready in October,” Luis Olivos explained.
The representative of the academy clarified that the institution seeks to work mainly with 7-a-side soccer training, because it is the modality in which children from 4 or 5 years old are taught. He indicated that after 11 years of age, children can adapt to 11-a-side football, although he assured that European training models first suggest a transition to teams of 9 players before reaching senior modalities.
The Betis Academy programs have categories from 3 to 17 years of age. Each group works with weekly and daily objectives. At the end of the week, the group of coaches makes an evaluation of the understanding and results of these objectives in each student.
“After three or four years, the child should have all the training objectives clear so to speak. Here the kids come three times a week plus the day they have the game and that’s how their routine is made up,” he explained.
The panorama of minor football in the country
Olivos explained that in 2002 there was a boom in minor soccer training in Venezuela thanks to what he called the “Vinotinto boom.” Consider that something similar is currently happening thanks to the great diffusion that this sport is having in the country, the associated publicity, as well as the creation and growth of renowned academies in Venezuela.
“Football is more recognized in recent years partly thanks to all the publicity that Vinotinto gives it, because it is not even a question of facts or results, but at the end of the day football is a mass sport, which is played in all the states of the country and even FIFA affiliates more countries than the UN, that is, it is the largest organization in the world,” he commented.
Olivos catalogs this increase in interest in soccer as something natural and part of globalization. He expressed that the fact that the Copa América was played a few months ago and that the 2026 World Cup Qualifiers are in dispute also influences this growth.
“When those big sporting events come, you normally see a growth in the enrollment of soccer academies. The years in which there is a World Cup, the participation of children in the academies is much more sustained than when there is a Copa América and it is something that I have seen in many years working in this environment,” he alleged.
He pointed out that to keep this motivation alive it is important that soccer academies adapt their spaces so that their students can watch Vinotinto matches in their facilities.
In the end, for a child who is playing soccer in this country, his main focus should be the national team and this is something that is done in other countries, because everything freezes when his team plays,” he expressed.
The director of the academy considers that the next step in the growth of football at all levels is the professionalization of both the players and the coaches and the coaching staff.
“There is no way to properly train and train personnel. After one has been working on this for a long time and we have had the opportunity to go abroad, one realizes that we lack a lot in terms of training,” he indicated.
Dreams and expectations
Although Olivos promotes that the long-term goal of the children and adolescents of the academy is to reach the national team, he assures that it must be taken into account that very few minor soccer players become high-level professionals.
“That is why the important thing is not that the child becomes a professional, but that he is formed with values, because approximately one child in every 3,000 who play soccer in their childhood reaches first-level soccer. We must also train that percentage that will not be part of the elite, but who are valuable human beings. Our priority is the education of values through sport,” he explained.
This philosophy is shared by the trainers with the parents and representatives who come to the Betis Academy Venezuela. In that sense, families play an important role in supporting students both in good times and in times of defeat.
The education and growth of any child in sports or any extra activity they do is essential. But the most important thing and what I always tell the representatives is that the kid is happy with that activity,” said the director of the academy.
Lorenzo, 8 years old, is one of those children who from a very young age dreamed of the possibility of being a professional soccer player and trains hard to move towards that goal.
“While in preschool, three years ago they asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up and he said soccer player. I don’t know if it is, but it’s what he wants and he enjoys football a lot, he’s always with his ball wherever he goes and football is part of his life,” said Alberto Rengifo, Lorenzo’s father, in an interview for The Diary.
Lorenzo is part of one of the teams that was a semifinalist in the Pipo Rossi League in Caracas. Furthermore, he has stood out in his group as a colt, even though he started playing in the defender position.
The representative explained that his son has been training in soccer for four years and I hope that they can continue for several more years learning and competing at different levels to be closer to his son’s dream.
“The good thing about this sport is that it teaches skills such as resilience, learning to communicate and knowing how to lose, things that I think help all children in their development. It is difficult to become a professional because I think only one child in a million does it, but I hope he can because it is his dream. Now there is significant growth in soccer and this in the future will mean another level in this sport in the country,” said the representative.
At the end of the under-9 category training at the Betis Academy Venezuela, the children approach and form a circle in the center of the field to hear a few words from their coaches and the team of physiotherapists. When the speech ends, each one runs to their parents to show them what they learned during the day.
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2024-10-06 02:00:12