Child footballer makes history

On Sept. 10, Sandro Reyes will fly to Spain, where he will train at FC Barcelona’s legendary escola for the next three years upon the club’s invitation. There, he will train every day, and play in tournaments every weekend without fail. If he does well, he will join a long line of Barca legends and get a slot at La Masia, the club’s youth team. He is the first Southeast Asian to receive an invitation from the team. And he’s nine years old.

It started innocently enough. At the age of four, Reyes was cajoled by his best friend to try soccer for fun. Soon, he was overshadowing all the boys on the pitch at Southridge. The lean youngster, playing both striker and midfielder, saw things before they developed, made unexpected passes, scored impressive goals. He was simply light years ahead of the competition.

“Honestly, I don’t know where his talent comes from,” admits Sandro’s father, Atty. Edmund Reyes, executive director of the Toll Regulatory Board. “He sees things before they happen, and makes plays you wouldn’t expect. There is almost a frustration that other players don’t see the same things. He’s just advanced for his age.”

Still, Edmund and his wife Camille wanted to make sure what they saw in their youngest was real, so they joined Sandro and some teammates in the hotbeds of the best youth football in the country, Negros, specifically Iloilo, Bacolod and Barotac Nuevo. For many, many years, Barotac had been particularly cruel to big-city boys, with their preternaturally gifted kids, some even playing barefoot, humiliating even the best-trained, best-equipped children from Metro Manila.

But not this time. 

“That’s what I’ll miss the most, the feeling I get every time I bring him to a new tournament,” says the devoted soccer Dad. “Having Sandro with you is like having a secret weapon, like having a nuclear weapon.”

The next step was testing Sandro’s skill – and determination – outside the country. Locally, he was constrained to play against 12- and 13-year olds because he was so much better than his peers. And though he could hold his own talent-wise, bigger opponents would get physical and send him sprawling across the field. If he was confined to local play, the danger was he would either stagnate and lose his passion for the game, or eventually get hurt.

Sandro himself expressed a desire to attend a camp in Singapore organized by FC Barcelona. The family decided to make a fun trip out of it to lessen the pressure on their younger child. Sandro performed extremely well, and even the Spanish coaches acknowledged his vision and advanced talent level. But the family thought little of it. That is, until they received an e-mail two weeks later, asking Sandro to join a 45-minute workout. In Spain. That’s when it dawned on the Reyeses that they had something special. But it also meant having to travel to Europe to make sure their son wouldn’t miss this opportunity. With the support of grandparents, aunts and uncles, they made the trip a graduation gift to their eldest, crossed their fingers, and flew. It was a mind-blowing experience, bigger than they imagined. Over 2,400 children aged 9 to 12 attended, over 400 of them Sandro’s age.

“From the start, you could tell their coaching was different,” Edmund Reyes says. “At the start they lined up the players, and already, the coaches were taking notes. Even just physically, they were looking for a certain type of player.”

After the tryout, the coaches told the Reyeses their son was very good. The family was stunned. With all that history and tradition of winning, FC Barcelona coaches do not give praise lightly. Upon their return, the parents received a second invitation for Sandro to return to Catalan. This time, there were only 40 nine-year olds left. At the end, only two were selected, an Irish boy and the lone Filipino, the surprising Sandro. Now, things were really serious. Edmund and Camille had to make plans, find a school and apartment in the area, and prepare to be apart while their little boy took this next big step closer to the world’s largest soccer stage. It will be a big sacrifice because they are genuinely close to their son, but these chances come once in a lifetime. At any rate, Sandro smiled and said he was sure his father would visit him often.

“We made sure to take it one step at a time. There was not a step when Sandro faltered,” the elder Reyes continues. “Even when he found out he made it, it was as if he knew. Not that he was arrogant, he just knew. And when we asked him if he really wanted to stay in Spain for the next three years, apart from his friends whom he’ll miss, to a small apartment instead of his house where he’s comfortable, and away from his family whom he’s very close to, he said he wanted to do it.”

There is, of course, one other minor obstacle to overcome. Historically, FC Barcelona is predominantly composed of natives of Catalan. They are a proud people who have an unbending faith in their abilities, and it is extremely rare that outsiders ever make the first team. They are one of only three clubs never to have been relegated from La Liga, and have a deeply intense rivalry with Real Madrid that is second to none. Even the most gifted players in the world like Leo Messi had to survive the La Masia and climb up the ranks of Barca’s training teams, as did all of the club’s most storied heroes. So it is rare but excusable if they occasionally acquire players from outside Catalan or even Spain. But a little kid from a small archipelago ranked 152nd in the world?

Sandro can thank Paulino Alcantara for breaking down that wall for him. Exactly 100 years ago Alcantara, a native of Iloilo, started playing for Barcelona at the age of 15, and set an astonishing club record from 1912 to 1927. In that span, the powerful Filipino scored 357 goals in 357 matches and helped the club to five Spanish championships and ten Catalan championships. Once, he kicked a shot so hard it ripped through the net. Perhaps the locals can embrace Reyes as Alcantara’s second coming.

For the first time, one of Europe’s most storied and exclusive football clubs has invited a Filipino with the promise of a possible future at the fabled La Masia, and perhaps FC Barcelona itself. The prayers for safe travel and good fortune from proud Filipinos go with this remarkable boy, Sandro Reyes.

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