The national team’s victory this Monday in Tenerife against Switzerland (3-2) was not experienced as just another match in the Moratalaz Sports Schooldedicated for decades to the training of its students as people and to transmitting values such as teamwork and discipline through football. In that Nations League match against the Helvetians, the members of this well-known school in the capital celebrated the premiere of Pablo Barrios (21 years old) with Spain, a reason for pride because the midfielder now from Atlético de Madrid became the first player with a past in the EDM to make his debut with the senior team. «For us it is a pride, a privilege and a luck. The greatest success that a club like ours, dedicated to training players, can have is for them to end up going as far as possible and he has achieved it,” he explains to this newspaper. Jesus Recioformer player and current president of ED Moratalaz. A neighborhood where the name of one of its neighbors, Pablo Barrios, is being spread by word of mouth this Tuesday.
As for any training club, seeing one of their former boys reach the elite is the best gift and a wonderful compensation for the sacrifice involved in the anonymous work they carry out every day so that young people can enjoy football. Both due to the number of chips (900) and the number of teams under its control (45), ED Moratalaz is one of the largest registered in the Madrid Football Federation. Since its foundation (2006), thousands of children and young people have passed through the facilities of the Dehesa de Moratalaz, a field historically known among Madrid’s modest football fans as ‘Urbis’, a modest stadium which features its steep stands with capacity for a thousand spectators. At the club, it is not surprising that Barrios has touched the sky with the national team, with whom he already won gold at the Paris Games last summer.
Jesús Recio remembers him well because when the international entered school, at a lollipop age, the now president served as a coach in the youngest category. Barrios did not take long to attract his attention when he was already active in the prebenjamín. «I remember that he stood out for his blonde hair, but he especially stood out above the rest for his technical and tactical level, he was well above average. He aimed for very good ways to take the leap and he has achieved it. He has played in the Champions League, he has won Olympic gold and now he has made his debut with the senior team, it is a source of pride for us,” says the leader.
After the debut against Switzerland, his former club sent a congratulatory message to the former pupil. «History in EDM. The first player trained in EDM to debut with the Senior National Team. It is a pride to see how effort and dedication bear fruit. “Congratulations!” wrote the Moratalaz Sports School in X (former Twitter).
As ED Moratalaz highlights in its media and Recio endorses in his conversation with ABC, Barrios was linked to the club until his senior year, at which time he signed for the club. real Madrida bridge to the Athletic. Although his stay at his neighborhood club was short, the ties became strong and it is not strange to see him still there. «He continues to meet and see several boys of his generation, especially with David Romero, a boy who has been at the club his entire life and belongs to the first team. There are even several kids from the neighborhood who went to the final of the Olympic Games to see him,” details the leader, satisfied with the midfielder’s success. The success of a boy who does not forget his neighborhood.
The President’s Lament
Jesús Recio, however, will not be able to hang the photo of Barrios with the Spain shirt in the locker room tunnel of the old ‘Urbis’. The ED Moratalaz, as a tribute and motivation for the new generations, exhibited there, in a hallway under its stands, a mural with images of the greatest milestones of the footballers who have passed through the club. From there it has disappeared and there is no trace, for example, of the photo of Barrios when he became the first former player to set foot on the Champions League.
«Sadly neither I nor anyone can see that photo in the locker room tunnel now. A year ago the facility went out to tender and was won by a private company that made us remove everything we had there. “Now we are only renting, but when we get the facility to be ours, we will make it secure.” The best possible tribute from a modest club that also has its legends.
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