From Lithuania to Villarreal
{mb_sdlf_jugador_SDLF-jugador_frase-destacada}Rimvydas Kiriejevas signs for the ‘Yellow Submarine’ after two and a half years in Marcet.
Like many Marcet students, Rimvydas Kiriejevas came to Spain with the objective of receiving a type of sports training that he could not find in his country. The Lithuanian goalkeeper landed in Barcelona in the summer of 2017. After two and a half years in the High Performance Academy, he managed to sign with Villarreal, the club with which he started his journey in January 2020.
The scouts of the yellow team started to pay attention to him in Oviedo, during one of the many tournaments in which Marcet participates with the objective that their students can measure themselves against big rivals, put to the test all that they have learned during the training sessions, improve through the competition and let themselves be seen by the best clubs in Spain and Europe.
“In Marcet I knew exactly what I had to do to progress”
“When I heard that Villarreal had showed interest in me it was fantastic”, recalls Rimvydas. “I was told by Marcet’s sports director, because it was him who was approached. Knowing that a professional club of such a level had positively valued my potential gave me an extra motivation to work even harder. Now I’m very happy to have the possibility to start improving as a professional player”.
“In Barcelona, I made progress, especially in the way I played with my feet and in the way I interpreted the games”, recalls the Lithuanian goalkeeper, who also made it into his country’s National Team thanks to his good performance. “It was just in the last few weeks before I joined Villarreal. Unfortunately I couldn’t give my best because I was still recovering from an injury that had kept me off the pitch for three months. I hope to have more opportunities in the future“.
For now, Rimvydas’ challenge is to establish himself with Villarreal. He has experience with high level teams, since in Marcet he was able to play against clubs like Atlético de Madrid, Valencia, Sevilla or Manchester City. “In Barcelona I was able to look at my playing style from different perspectives. In Marcet they always gave me new objectives to fulfil, so that in each training session I knew exactly what I had to do to progress. I always knew what I needed to improve, what I had to focus on”.