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| Barcelona scouts praise the field vision of Ben Lederman, center right, and his seemingly advanced ability to see passing lanes and openings during the run of play. [Photo: Lederman family.] |
"More than six million Americans live abroad, according to recent estimates, so it was not altogether unusual when the Ledermans, a family of four from California, moved here in 2011. After all, one of them got a dream job.
For the Ledermans, though, the strange thing was not the move but the reason: The opportunity that brought them to Spain was not for Danny, the father and small-business owner, or Tammy, the mother and real estate agent. It was for Ben, their 11-year-old son.
Two years later, Ben Lederman, 13, is still working, still spending most days (and many evenings) training at La Masia, the famed youth soccer academy run by the global soccer juggernaut Barcelona.
Ben is the first United States-born player invited to train at La Masia, and that distinction, while significant, means little to his overall quest: to work his way up through the Barcelona youth teams and someday, maybe, become the first American to play for Barcelona’s first team."
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the rest of the article from the New York Times here.
2 comments:
i missed this post before. how interesting. what age does he have to be to get into the team? how did they find him? do they scout all around the world or do people write to barça asking to be given a try?
Good questions! I'm not really sure of the answers at all except in this case the article says that his team had come to play a tournament here and he was spotted then..."At 11, after being praised by Barcelona scouts who watched him play in an exhibition arranged between one of the club’s youth teams and Ben’s club team in California, he earned a weeklong tryout. The culmination came when Danny and Tammy told Ben he had been invited to train at La Masia."
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