Zaragoza (EFE).- The theory of the six degrees of separation affirms that you can contact anyone in the world using five intermediaries, six with the recipient. But in this story, only four people were needed for the Real Zaragoza kits to reach Lamin, in Gambia, where the founder of the ‘Wayeto Football Academy’ was waiting for them.
Today, as a result of chance but also of determination, the children and adolescents of this local academy wear the colors of Real Zaragoza, more than 4,000 kilometers from La Romareda.
To cover this distance, it all started with a plane ride. Encouraged by a friend who had already volunteered with ASEDA Gambia, the Zaragoza nurse Paula Ferrer packed her backpack last summer to embark on this experience that she today recognizes has changed her way of seeing the world.
It was there that he met Abdou Aziz Corr, in charge of the volunteers of this NGO. When Paula befriended Aziz, as he is known in the city of Lamin, she discovered that soccer was his great passion and that in 2007, when he was a professional player in his country, he founded in his community the school that he would have liked attending as a child: ‘Wayeto Football Academy’.
The commitment to enlarge a dream
“Football means a lot to me. It’s not just about winning or losing: it’s a daily learning routine to improve our goals and develop our mental and physical abilities,” explains this 35-year-old young man from the soccer field where he trains in a video call with Efe. professionally at ‘Wayeto West FC’, in the youth and absolute categories.
On the other end of the phone, from Zaragoza, a friendly face answers, that of Paula, who on her return home after this volunteering in which she was doing nursing and social work, insisted on helping Aziz in the task of enlarging his dream.
“I thought he was a very good person, with a heart that does not fit in his chest. When he told me his story in professional sports and about his academy, it marked me a lot, because he has an enormous passion for football”, says Paula, who set herself a challenge: to collect in Spain the sports equipment that is scarce in The Gambia to send it to the Wayeto Football Academy.
So he got down to work and made a collection among family and friends with which he was able to buy material such as balls, goalkeeper gloves, cones and bibs. The news reached one of her co-workers, Adrián Iepure, head of the youth football medical services for the blanquillo team, who put Paula in contact with a third actor: the head of the Real Zaragoza Foundation, Pedro Suñén . And so, the shipment grew with the youth soccer uniforms provided by the club.
“We are very happy, proud and grateful to have been able to participate. They sent us some very lively videos, playing with the kits, and we know that we have captured Real Zaragoza fans for life there, which is also one of the objectives: to promote Zaragoza throughout the world”, Suñén celebrates, noting that the soccer academy founded by Aziz not only provides sports training, but is also a place to socialize.
Paula still remembers with emotion and gratitude the moment when she arrived at the Real Zaragoza sports complex to collect the donated material and came across four sports bags “full of shirts, pants and socks of all sizes”.
A month later, Aziz waited for the kits at a port near his city, where they successfully arrived along with the rest of the material through a Gambian businessman with a store in Spain, who often sends containers to his country.
More than a hundred young people from 8 to 15 years old
“The boys are very excited and enthusiastic,” Aziz celebrates on the other end of the phone. As soon as he distributed the material to his students, he sent photographs of the teams to Spain with messages of thanks for Paula, Adrián and Real Zaragoza.
Because, as the coach explains, being able to wear these quality uniforms means a lot to his young footballers, since it gives them “self-confidence” and opens the doors to playing in championships in which having a kit is one of the requirements.
“For me it was always a dream to work with children. I know that it is not an easy path because people do not know about soccer academies and their advantages. But I don’t care how slow it goes; As long as I have a clear direction, I am not going to stop, no matter how fast or how fast I am,” confesses the former soccer player in a thank you letter.
This altruistic initiative, which was born when the young Gambian was a professional footballer and who has now maintained that he works for the NGO, has grown over the years and today is a meeting point for more than a hundred young people between the ages of 8 and 15 years old, who also participate in community cleaning services.
Much more than a game
“The soccer academies here are also a means of education for children with less privileges to go to school. So that they have hope and dream of changing the lives of many”, explains the founder, who sees football as “much more than a game”. For him it is about “a group of different people who enjoy playing together to help each other achieve their goals and purposes”.
Aziz, who started playing football through family tradition, proudly acknowledges that many of his young students play much better than him, who did not have the opportunity to train in an academy. Some of those who trained at the beginnings of ‘Wayeto Football Academy’ are today in the First Division and have traveled abroad to compete.
The academy, “with the dream of one day becoming professional players”, has the habit of meeting on weekends to watch European football. “Recently, one of them told me very happily that Real Zaragoza had won 4-1 and that moved me a lot”, celebrates the coach of these youngsters, who are already linked to Zaragoza for much more than their uniforms.