Friendly Academy is on the verge of helping yet another Zimbabwe junior player Tafadzwa Magombo live his dream by joining a Spanish football academy, Standardsport can reveal.
By Brian Nkiwane
The academy, which has for the past months specialised on offering its players chances to showcase their talent on international trial stints, confirmed the development this week.
“Tafadzwa [14] was outstanding in all the two matches that we played, leading to his nomination by the two coaches who were provided by Soccer Services, an independent coaches body in Spain. Now the decision lies with his parents on whether they are going to meet all the demands for the boy to live his longtime dream,” said Partridge Muskwe who travelled with the boy.
He added: “We have been involved in international trials for our junior players since the inception of this football academy. Initially, the plan was to travel with a full squad which was going to play against junior teams from Espanyol and Villarreal, but we could not raise airfares for other players. What ended up happening is that I took with me five players who played two five-aside matches against other junior players from Russia losing the first match 6-5 and drew the second match 5-all.”
Speaking about the possible move by the youngster, the academy’s founder Richard Solobala said the St Johns College Form Two student might be moving to Spain in January if the deal materialises.
“We are now waiting for consent from his parents. As soon as they give the thumbs up, we will get the ball rolling for his intended move. What it means is that he will be going there for academic studies, as well as for football,” Solobala added.
His parents, engineers Lovemore and Gloria Magombo, were all smiles when Standardsport visited them for this interview.
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“We are very happy for him. It has been his dream for the past five years. It is good that the coaches told us that there are English education curriculums which he has been doing here, so there will be no problem with his move. What we want to do first is to get all the information which will include the cost for the scholarship,” said Gloria.
Not to be outdone, Lovemore also had this to say: “We know football career can be disappointing and short at times. So what we want is for him to pursue both. He has been a brilliant boy,”
Lovemore added that the boy came from a football family and was a brilliant player himself.
Other players who travelled to Barcelona are Tadiwanashe Mataranyika, Munashe Mandaza, Nyasha Hwenga and Takunda Dzinotyiwei.
