FCBEscola Santo Domingo sending most teams to 5th International Tournament

These are busy times at FCBEscola Santo Domingo, where preparations are under way for the 5th International FCBEscola Tournament in Barcelona from March 21 to 24. With seven teams participating in different categories, this school is the most represented of all teams coming from outside of Catalonia.

There is also an eighth team travelling with them from the Ecuador and Puerto Rico campuses, with the school coming to Barcelona with high expectations, especially for its boys born between 2002 and 2006.

“We are preparing for this tournament very seriously” says Marc Cebrián, director of the local project. “The team that are travelling to Barcelona are doing an extra day of training and are playing external teams in friendlies every Saturday. These seven teams are taking special sessions in which they’re working on more complex aspects of the game and we’re even doing theory classes. We’re all very excited about it.”

Three players on grants

The plane tickets have been bought and the players are getting excited. They have a full programme worked out for their time in Barcelona, including some warm-up fixtures against local teams.

One thing they are concerned about is the cold. They are used to playing in the heat of the Dominican Republic, and Catalan winter temperatures of around 17 degrees are a lot less than what they are used to.”

“The negative side is that we have a couple of players that can’t come because they’ve picked up last minute injuries” says Cebrián. “But the good news is that we’ve just heard that three of the 2006 players will be able to come because they’ve been awarded grants.”