- 2024 Spotlight
Personal Statement
I first got involved with soccer at 3 years old while I was living in the United States, at the time the Spanish national team won the South Africa World Cup, and it has been my passion ever since. I'm a Spanish winger/striker, born and currently living in Madrid, but also holding a US passport. My first taste of official club football was in St. Louis, where for 3 years I played in the Scott Gallagher Academy. Later, when I was 8 years old, I moved back to Spain and spent a few years playing for the ASM (American School of Madrid) school soccer team, which plays at an extremely high level for a school team. I was the top scorer in my league for 4 years straight, in which we won 3 titles.
My playstyle is a very direct type of soccer, as I’m a very fast player and so I like to grab the ball and dribble forward through many players, breaking lines and creating many goal scoring opportunities through pure pace and dribbling. I get into many crossing opportunities from which I generate many assists and am a good finisher when I get the ball inside the box. On defense, I am a relentless presser and have a good understanding of defensive positioning due to my past as a defender. Physically, speed is one of my strengths, but not far from resistance, as for example, my mile time when I was 14 years old is on the all time leaderboard top three for all high schoolers (14-18 years old).
I’ve been at ASM for the past 8 years now, and I am a fluent Spanish and English speaker. I’m a sophomore this year, but have already chosen my IB classes for my junior year. I will be taking math, physics, and business courses for high level classes, as well as chemistry, english, and spanish for my standard level courses. I’ve received Honors and High Honors over the past few years, and currently have a GPA of 3.4.
In the summer of 2021, I decided to move into federated club football. After receiving offers, for the 21/22 and 22/23 seasons I played for Aravaca C.F, which at the time were operating in Division de Honor of Madrid, one of the most elite and prestigious tiers of youth football in the world, in which the top 32 teams compete out of the over 1000+ teams there are in each age group. In this division we faced the professional academies such as the likes of Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, Rayo Vallecano, Getafe, and Leganes. I started off playing as a right back, but eventually was moved up to right wing, and in my first season I registered 10 goals and 13 assists, the highest combined G/A of anyone on my team by far. That summer, I participated in three well known international tournaments, Donosti Cup, Madcup, and Marbella Cup, which had worldwide reputation clubs such as PSG, Manchester City, Barcelona, Juventus and Olympique Lyon all participating. In said tournaments, I recorded 9 G/A in just 4 games, and my whole team had scored 10 total goals. In my second year I was moved up to the varsity team, playing with kids one year older than myself while still regularly starting games.
In the 23/24 season , I was recruited by another Division de Honor team in Madrid, EFMO Boadilla, and I decided to move there. I worked hard over the summer to overcome a broken meniscus injury that I suffered playing in the international MADCUP tournament that had me sidelined for nearly 7 months, and since then I’ve been continuing to focus on my football.
My goal, and dream, is to return to the US to have the opportunity to access the best education standards while continuing to play the sport I love on the highest level.
