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A football academy tournament in Salou, Spain this November will see City Sports School present as the only Nigerian team among the world's elite clubs.
The best football teams in the world will be sending their academies to Salou, Spain for a tournament featuring young players of different age ranges.
The tournament in Spain will be held between November 23 and 28 and will feature only two African teams and just one from Nigeria.
That one team from Nigeria is City Sports School, a sports development platform focused on grooming future stars and helping them fulfil the promise of their full potential.
Speaking at a press conference, City Sports CEO, Shola Opaleye explained the ideology of the organisation better, "City Sports focuses on five sports, five disciplines if you like; football, basketball swimming, athletics and tennis."
"We have students all around Lagos, some are in Abuja, some are in Kano, doing one of these five sports in some cases, some are doing two, some are even doing three in about nine centres as well."
"Part of the development program that we have is to take our students to competitions and tournaments like these just to help them get to the next level."
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City Sports to represent Nigeria in Spain
Shola Opaleye provided more information on the upcoming tournament and City Sports' plans to represent Nigeria well on the world stage.
"The tournament is going to happen in Spain, there’s an Island called Salou, it is 45 minutes from Barcelona and the tournament is from November 23 to 28 this year, it is a football competition, an elite level football competition."
"This tournament has the best of football academies that we already know, there is Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, Espanyol, Valencia, PSG, Leicester City, Rangers, Sporting Lisbon, FC Porto and many more. City Sports this year will be going with three teams, the under-11s, under-14s and under-17s."
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He stressed the importance of this to the development of the young players, "People like Messi went to such tournaments where they were spotted and opportunities were given to them."
"Win or not, they would have had the right exposure to develop and continue to build on their confidence as they forge on to become professional footballers or whatever dream they may have."
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A further breakdown on the logistics of City Sports going to Salou, Spain was further broken down in key details.
"We have three teams going, u-11, u-14 and u-17, u-11 will play 9-aside according to the structure of the tournament while u-14 and u-17 will play with the full 11."
"Altogether we have about 32 players going across all three teams including their substitutes as well, supporters and parents as well, altogether with the staff and everybody there are about 48 people going on this trip."
"The tournament is from the 23rd to 28th of November, we travel on the 20th, we need to get to Spain and have a full day to ourselves in Salou to rest and prepare for the competition that starts a day after."
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City Sports captains talking tough
The captains of the aforementioned three City Sports teams also shared their thoughts on the upcoming tournament, all sharing their excitement to represent Nigeria in Salou, Spain.
Under-17 captain, Faisal Adeyemi had this to say, "I’ve not done this before, this is my first time so I’m really happy to represent Nigeria in this tournament. City Sports have always done an amazing job, they’ve prepared us by giving us a very tough and intense training."
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"The team is really good, we have a lot of talented and hardworking players so we will match up against the teams in Spain. I’m really prepared mentally and I want to make sure that my teammates do not lose faith when things are not going well."
Under-14 captain, Washington Bakara had this to say, "Yeah I believe that we can compete, I have confidence in my team because football is really about doing the basics, that is passing, crossing and finishing which is really important."
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"If we do that to the level where we can win the game then I feel like we can go places. It's always about having faith, I will keep on pushing the team and telling them that it's not over yet, we will fight to take something back and we will represent Nigeria and City Sports well in this tournament."
"The relationship with my coaches is very professional, they demand a lot in training which is to put in the hard work and put in the effort because that’s what it takes to be a football player."
Under-11 captain Noah Ojewale exuded more confidence than his older colleagues, "It’s been a dream because it's my first time being part of something as big and as important as this so I’m really excited."
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"I’m very confident because my team has very good players, all of us have very high potential because we’ve worked very hard to come to the stage we are and I believe we can win the tournament. Our coaches put us through very hard training, we do IRs, running long kilometres and watching our diet."
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