In a virtuous circle

Eder Aller signs for FC Barcelona’s U-16 team after one year in the Marcet Professional Program.

Eder understood that football was his thing when he was 10 years old. “When Cultural Leonesa signed me, I was a very big child and the goal was very small for me. That’s why I was saving lots of balls and everything went well for me. It was at that moment when I started to think that I could become someone in football”.

From there, Eder began to take training more and more seriously. He didn’t let any balls pass, but he didn’t let any chances either. Every summer he used to take advantage of the vacations to sign up for soccer camps. “But the level was never what we were expecting,” César Aller recalls. Eder’s father explains that it was his son who insisted on training more and better. And that’s how they found the Marcet Football University.

“After a month IN MARCET I ALREADY NOTICED A CHANGE, AND
IN THE END IT WORKED OUT”

“No other campus offered us 35 hours of training per week,” César points out when talking about the summer course that convinced Eder to stay in Barcelona for a whole season as a Professional Program‘s student. “I had to get away from my family and there was a risk that nothing would come of it, that I wouldn’t feel well for some reason,” recalls the goalkeeper, who began his career at Marcet in September 2021.

“However, I came with a very clear idea: to focus on football for a year. That was my goal, I knew what I was coming to do. After a month of work, I’ve already begun to notice a change. And if you’re an ambitious person like me, that motivates you to do more, until in the end things work out on their own”. A kind of virtuous circle in which the results feed the motivation, and the motivation feeds the results: “I tried very hard, every day, resting well, putting aside the mobile phone at night… And in the end things turned out well for me” .

So well that FC Barcelona knocked on Eder’s door. At the end of the 2021-22 season, the young goalkeeper already knew that the following season he would be a player for Barça. A challenge that Eder faces with courage and calm. “At Marcet I improved a lot. I learned to play more offensively, keeping the control of the ball. It is a type of philosophy that is very similar to Barça’s. So I think that everything I have learned this year will be very useful for me next season too.”