Marcet’s goalkeepers are playing for the best Spanish teams

Real Madrid, Atlético de Madrid, Villarreal, Espanyol, Rayo Vallecano, Real Valladolid… More and more First Division teams are taking on Marcet’s trainees and placing them under their goalposts. Our High-Performance Academy, developed in collaboration with professionals such as Luis Llopis, is producing successful keepers that are finding their way into the Spanish football scene with the prospect of eventually playing for their respective national teams.

This is the case of Miguel Ángel Morro, who currently plays for Rayo Vallecano’s Junior A team. The goalkeeper from Madrid started coming to Marcet at the age of twelve and has recently debuted with Vallecano’s main team. He tells us that “it’s impossible to progress if football doesn’t make you happy.” If this is the case, then Miguel Ángel is very far from being unhappy, since the Spanish U-19s national team has been calling his way.

A similar thing is happening to Álvaro Fernández, who has already played over 25 games sporting la roja’s kit. Among them, matches of the U-17s World Cup that took place in India. An impressive trajectory for the current keeper of Malaga, a club he made it to in 2016 after several intensive courses at Marcet, where he first enrolled at the age of 10.

Another goalkeeper who knows how it feels to wear the colours of the National Team is Javier Cendón. The former student of the Professional Program, he feels strongly about how, if you put the work in, success is inevitable: “Sometimes it got very hard. I felt like I was leaving my life behind for something that I wasn’t sure I’d ever properly make it in. But when I got word that Villarreal wanted me to sign a contract, that the Valencian National Team wanted to work with me, and then that the Spanish national team was getting in touch… All the tough moments I remembered made sense and were starting to show their worth because the satisfaction you get through hard work is more gratifying than anything I can think of.”

Marcos Ortega Lara is another one of our trainees that looks like he’s headed in a similar direction. On the lookout for more demanding training, at age 14 he decided to sign up for Marcet’s Annual Course in Madrid to then get signed by Real Madrid, where he currently defends the U-19s C team’s goal. Last year Marcos was in the U-15s A team, a place occupied today by Rubén Paraíso, another former student of our academy: “I wanted to be a professional goalkeeper and that’s why I decided to sign up for Marcet’s courses, now making my dream a reality.”

“I wanted to be a professional goalkeeper and that’s why I decided to sign up for Marcet’s courses, now making my dream a reality.” [R. paraíso]

Same dream, same city, different athlete: Alejandro Fernández, goalkeeper for Atletico de Madrid’s U-15s A team. He began to attend Marcet at the age of eight. He remembers it to this day: “They taught me discipline, to train regardless of the weather, to get up early, to communicate with my classmates… I always went out to the field happy. Excited. Enthusiastic.”

“At the clubs where I’d been up until then, I’d never had training sessions exclusively dedicated to goalkeeping and Marcet, in that aspect, helped me a lot,” Jorge García tells us, currently goalkeeping for Real Valladolid‘s U-15s, how he plays alongside two other alumni of our Academy, Faysel Hinojosa and Juan García.

It’s also worth noting the career of Félix Clapin-Girard, who signed for Granada’s junior team; of Mario Oronoz, who got to train with the lower categories of the Puerto Rico National Team; and Alejandro Torres, convened by Bolivia.

Goalkeepers who are no longer at the academy because they have reached the higher tiers of the sport as professional players include Edu Frías, who signed for Espanyol after four years at Marcet and today plays for the club’s second team. David Soria, currently at Getafe, having won a UEFA Europa League with Sevilla and being one of the absolute key components to that victory. Also, María Concha, who has reached her dream of playing in the Mexican First Division with the Gallos Blancos de Queretaro.

Marcet doesn’t only educate players but prepares technicians also. Tommy N’Kono, legendary Cameroonian goalkeeper who dazzled the world at the 1982 World Cup in Spain, decided to bring his knowledge to our school with the aim of becoming a goalkeeping coach in Primera Division. Now he works with Espanyol. Germán Vargas had a similar idea and became a technician at Saprissa, the most prestigious club in his country, Costa Rica. And last but not least Miquel Colldecarrera, who coaches Girona’s junior goalkeepers at their youth academy. These people’s journies show that hard work pays off. Clearly, being at the forefront of researching intelligent goalkeeper preparation bears fruit, and will continue to do so.