By Dan Plouffe
FC Barcelona has officially arrived in the nation’s capital. Close to 90 players took part in the first set of evening sessions for the new local outlet FCB’s international escola on the week of Sept. 26 at the Dome @ Louis-Riel.
“We are really happy with the start,” says Angel Berastain Munar, the technical director of the Ottawa Barça academy. “The players are enjoying it, and they are learning, just from a few sessions.”
Most recently the director of the FCB escola in Morocco, Munar has settled into his new home since arriving midsummer.
“I’ve felt there is a really great soccer community here,” signals Munar, who’s checked out many soccer facilities and activities since setting foot in Ottawa for the first time in his life around two months ago. “We are coming to stay a lot of years, and we want to be part of the soccer community.”
The FCB escola offers programs for 1, 2 or 3 evenings of the week. Most participants will also play for a community club in addition to their training with the Barça academy, Munar notes.
“It’s about bringing something different. Not better, not worse, but different,” underlines the holder of a UEFA Pro-equivalent coaching licence. “We give them the option of being with us for an extra training session, to improve themselves and then to perform better in their club competition.
“We are really open. We never say to anybody that you must only be with us and nobody else. Finally, it’s about the children. It’s not about us. It’s about the children and their development.”
The FCB escola seeks to help develop Canadian coaches as well.
“If a coach goes to another club and develops something like this, that would be very positive,” explains Munar, who speaks fluently in English, French and of course Spanish. “And seeing a player grow and go to another club, semi-professional or professional, and watching them play the way we like, would be a big reward for us.”
The catchphrase behind the program is “teaching Barça values”, such as respect, fair play, effort, friendship and happiness.
“You can write it on the wall and explain it, but it’s really about providing it during training sessions,” highlights Munar, noting that staff stop any negative situations between a teammate, an opponent or a referee immediately and clearly.
“We also have a very, very beautiful way to use the vocabulary in soccer,” he adds. “We try not to talk about aggressive words, like stealing the ball, fighting for the ball, or attack, defend.
“We talk about trying to win the ball from the other players, having the ball and not having it.
“We work a lot with small kids and we have to understand what we are doing. If they relate the words we use to what they are doing in a very aggressive way, like a war, it’s something we don’t like as a club.”
What Munar would like to achieve in Ottawa is to teach players the beautiful game the way Barça plays – a game based on skill, not on overpowering opponents. That desire stems from the end of Munar’s own amateur playing career.
“To be honest, I left it because I am a player who likes to play control-pass, possession kind of soccer. This was not happening. We were always fighting for the ball, jumping, running. I didn’t feel comfortable,” recounts the 29-year-old. “I went forward to teach the way to play that I was missing.”
Born in Mallorca, Munar moved to Barcelona to study economics at university while also coaching and earning his licences. He was in Morocco most recently, heading up the FCB Casablanca escola before coming to Ottawa.
“I love the game. Analyzing it, watching it, playing it. Understanding what’s going on and the way we have to play,” signals Munar, who is planning an official launch for the Ottawa academy on Oct. 25 with FCB representatives in town.
“What we’d really like, in the future, if we have a real game situation and all the players were dressed in black, we’d like people to discover that those players belong to us (based on the way they play),” he adds. “This would make us very proud of what we’re doing.”
Munar says he’s enjoyed a warm welcome in Ottawa, from the people as well as the weather – “though I’m afraid of what’s coming,” he smiles.
It helps to know that the bulk of the academy activities will be run out of the Louis-Riel Dome, a top-notch facility that features a full-size indoor pitch, Munar adds.
Louis-Riel high school players also learning the Barça style
The Dome is located next door to Louis-Riel high school in Blackburn Hamlet. In partnership with the Louis-Riel sports-études program, Munar also works with the high school’s soccer players in the afternoons.
“I am loving working with them,” indicates Munar, who works alongside the coaches of the Louis-Riel boys’ and girls’ programs – Joé Fournier and Sophie Anderson, both escola coaches as well. “It’s a beautiful program they have.”
Fournier says establishing the partnership with FCB shows that their innovative sports-study program – which sees participants training five times a week during the day (three times for soccer, the other two for fitness along with sport psychology, nutrition, or yoga sessions) – is committed to “bringing it up a notch all the time.”
Another example of the next-level approach to sport in the high school setting is having athletes wear a GPS during training to measure their workload and help to prevent injuries, and using an app to track how they slept, their hydration levels and nutrition, and any soreness they experience.
“When we signed the partnership to have a Barcelona coach with us every time we’re on the field, for me, I was ecstatic,” Fournier reflects. “I had a dream job before. Now I don’t know what to call it any more. That’s how good it’s been. The kids are loving it, the parents too, the whole environment.”
Louis-Riel’s relationship with the FC Barcelona escola dates back to late 2013, the European powerhouse club having held week-long camps locally in the past. Fournier sought out a partnership with Barça since they are his favourite club.
“But for two main reasons,” he underlines. “It’s the way they develop their players, and their methodology/philosophy: keeping the ball, very offensive-minded, when you lose the ball, right away, win it back.
“And also their values. I look at players who have developed through their ranks – Iniesta, Messi, Xavi, Piqué – and the way they conduct themselves on the field. For me, that tells me a lot.
“To be able to bring this here is phenomenal.”