My wife and I visited Valencia last September. Based on what we witnessed, the organization of the amateur program there is amazing. There is a long empty riverbed which runs almost through the middle of the city. It is wide enough for soccer fields to have been built on it. And they are. When you cross one of the bridges which span the old riverbed, there are soccer fields in both directions as far as you can see. At the top of the bridge, where you walk down the stairs to the fields, were directories, listing what time practices and games are for every age from about 6 to 18. We stopped in the middle of a bridge to watch about 3 minutes of a scrimmage of players I would estimate were 11-12. Full uniforms, with one team wearing yellow tops over their kits so you could tell the teams apart. Three officials, just like at the pro level. At least 6 coaches: Two coaching each side and two more working with the players who weren’t in the scrimmage.
While not all the teams were scrimmaging, the same level of, for want of a better word, professionalism was obvious on the other pitches we could see. The ages of the players differed, the colors of the uniforms differed and what they were practicing differed, but the number of participants seemed about the same. From looking at the directory on the bridge, practices for squads of different age and skill levels (for example, on the directory for the bridge we were on were practices for “Juvenil” A, B, C, D and E were scheduled every 2 hours from 8 am to 6 pm. It was a Saturday, so I don’t know how early they start on school days. Like Catalonia, the Valencian Community has its own language, and everything appeared to have been written both in it and Spanish.
By the way, it was raining, hard at times and just a drizzle at others. But, the rain didn’t appear to have any impact on participation.
I have no idea if what we saw was for just the local area or for the entire city. Either way, it was very impressive.
