Football and culture in Brussels
{mb_sdlf_jugador_SDLF-jugador_frase-destacada}The Marcet students leave their comfort zone thanks to an expedition that delved deeper than sports training.
Making sport and education compatible has been the aim of Marcet ever since its creation. High football performance and cultural excellence go hand in hand daily at the Academy. These attributes can find themselves culminating in expeditions such as the one that the U-18 team made to Brussels. The trip, organized to make the most of the time spent in the capital of the European Union, served to learn more about the functioning of the community institutions, to foment group spirit and to face off against a prestigious rival.
The expedition set off at the crack of dawn from the central hub of the Academy, in Barcelona. The Marcet bus took 15 players and the technical team to El Prat airport, where they boarded a direct flight to Brussels airport. Once they had landed, another bus transported the group to a hotel located in the centre of the Belgian capital..
After breakfast, the team journeyed to visit the cities historic landmarks, such as the Grand-Place, the Brussels Stock Exchange and the picturesque streets that make up the heart of metropolis. Once they reached the European Parliament, the MEP Santiago Fisas Ayxelá was waiting to take them on a visit to the Hemicycle, where the Marcet students discovered the mechanisms that govern one of the most important institutions in the world.
The following day football was the star of the show. The Youth A team travelled to the modern facilities of AFC Tubize, a Second Division club who they met in a close but intense game. Playing against teams from other countries, with different styles of play and different football linguistics, is precisely one of the objectives of the Marcet Professional Program. Every year they organize tens of meetings with other international teams.
The objective is to create experiences with a high formative value, in which students will be obliged to leave their usual comfort zone and test themselves in unforeseen contexts, both sporting and non-sporting. In this sense, the rich variety of input received throughout the season is an indispensable way of fomenting effective and quality learning both on and off the pitch. The U-18 team’s experience is a perfect example of this.