Sports | Thursday 4 August, 2016 12:20 pm |

The duFC Elite Team for Season 2015-16, returned home with their heads held high following a grueling 17-day training camp in Spain led by LaLiga coaches, where they faced LaLiga’s top youth teams head on. 

 

In the second half of July, the duFC Elite Team, comprising top talent and UAE Schools and Streets Cup U16 winners played a total of 4 international-level friendly matches against LaLiga’s toughest youth teams, which enabled them to put into practice their skills, tactics and strategies. Raising their game and experience in competitive-standard European football, the players, displayed strong potential on the pitch. 

 

Based on comments from LaLiga club coaches and scouts, the duFC Elite Team members, who hail from all the corners of the UAE, have a bright future ahead of them, following this life-changing experience. 

 

Commenting on the performance of the team over the past two weeks, Fernando Sanz General Director - La Liga, MENA said, “We truly believe in the potential of youth from across the UAE and they have demonstrated that they indeed can play at the level of top youth teams from LaLiga.  This is just the beginning of a promising future for the youth footballers in the UAE and we will be closely following their progress at the du LaLiga High Performance Center we have set up in Dubai when they return from Spain.”

 

Over the past 17 days, the team has trained twice a day with sessions focusing on offensive and defensive play, specialized goalie training, fitness and stamina building and classroom sessions allowing them to understand tactics and strategies as they reviewed their own performance on the pitch.  

 

Speaking about the experience captain Bouherefa said, “This experience has been life-changing – I love football and with duFC for the first time I feel that I have a team that can compete at international standards and an opportunity to play professional football.”

 

Striker El Yamani said, “Football is my life and the past two and a half weeks we have trained so hard, but knowing that this will allow us to find international careers is worth it.  We have a strong team and I can’t wait for our training to continue in September.” 

 

The du Football Champions, the only international scouting platform in partnership with LaLiga was created to enable youth from across the UAE to pursue international football careers.  While in Spain coaches from LaLiga have been invited to attend the training and matches to scout for talents from the duFC Elite Team who demonstrate great potential and recruit them to play in top clubs of LaLiga.