ANDthis past sunday, the Alcorcón Sports Association for women’s futsal achieved a historic feat. Just in the season in which it has completed 30 years of existence, the club conquered the Spanish Youth Championship in the youth and cadet category, to achieve the first two major trophies in the entity’s history. And fate, always so capricious, wanted both to arrive hand in hand. And on the anniversary.
Although the feat is even greater if one takes into account that, just a couple of weeks ago, it was not at all clear that the club could travel to these Spanish youth football championships. To them had been classified their juvenile, infantile, cadet and juvenile feminine, and their juvenile and masculine juvenile. Until now, the entity had only managed to get into three decades in this prestigious tournament, which brings together the best of national futsal. On both occasions, the female child succeeded. And both times, they were out at the first change.
But the economic cost of distributing so much equipment throughout the Spanish geography was very high, between trips, lodging, diets and other expenses. And practically unaffordable for the Alcorcn futsal section. A club that, by the way, has dropped this season from the Second Division to the First RFEF of Spanish football. “Having qualified for so many championships was a significant economic waste. We run the risk of dying of success,” Alfonso Catalina, president and ‘alma meter’ of the potter’s club, for which he has been fighting for more than half his life, tells MARCA.
3,000 euros raised
Thus, from the entity they launched a ‘crowdfunding’ campaign, to raise funds so that the club’s teams could travel. The city of Alcorcón threw itself into their cause, the entity obtained 3,000 euros and their teams were able to travel to these Spanish Championships. “We didn’t want to give up going, even though I would have had to ask myself for a personal loan. We had to play as it were, because we may not be able to do it anymore. It’s something that almost never happens”, explains ‘Alfon’, as everyone knows him in Alcorcón.
Said and done. The six Alcorcn teams played the championships… and the children’s and the cadet team won it. “It was unthinkable to think of winning them. We played against the best teams in Spain, who have more resources than us”. The thermometer for the tournament was in the Spanish Championships for territorial teams, which were played in March and in which Madrid did not win any. “All the indicators told us that we had no options. PBut we have shown that, as a team, we are stronger than anyone else. And that the statistics are there to break them”, assures the president, who was in Motril on Sunday morning to be with the cadets. He traveled there early in the morning, because, on the afternoon of the previous day, the Alcorcn first team played at home against MSC Torreblanca Melilla in the last day of the First Division League. “I’m here and there all day, putting out fires,” jokes the president.
reasons to believe
In the first yellow team, precisely, he plays Paula Llorente, who is also the child’s coach. Early on Sunday, her girls beat Matar 2-1 in Poio, Pontevedra, and won the first major title in the history of Alcorcn, which is soon to be said. “I still haven’t fully processed it yet.“, he confesses to MARK. “It’s a great reward for the work of many years, and in this we have reaped the fruits. We have made history in the club and what better way to do it than twice. This means that great generations are coming to our base and hopefully here soon it will be reflected in the first team.. I would love to be able to share a dressing room with someone very soon,” he adds.
Just a few hours after the success of Paula and his girls, in Motril, and with ‘Alfon‘ In the stands, the cadet thrashed Cesar Augusta de Zaragoza in his final 3-0 and won the second Spanish Championship of the day. At the head of the team Iman El Berjiji, former Alcorcn player and that now, from the bench, she has led a team of warriors that has swept away all adversity. “A week before we left, we suffered several injury losses and had some down moments. But the players have never stopped believing. And even more so considering how much they have helped us with the fundraising campaign. We had to fight to the end,” the coach told this newspaper. She, like Paula, Alfonso and their girls, have taken Alcorcn to the top of the sportto close a perfect fairy tale and that could not have had a better ending.
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