C14 Pitch Blog

Cruyff Football offers products and services both online and in person. At its sports complex, located in Salou, south of Barcelona, the institution provides a residential program for national and international football players, in addition to organizing training camps, tryouts, and football tournaments. Cruyff Football also offers a coaching certification designed for professionals of all levels, with online and face-to-face training. On the digital side, it includes the Hub, a virtual space with a wide range of audiovisual and training resources for coaches. Finally, the C14Pad App is a flexible, intuitive, and customizable football coaching application.

In this interview, Albert Viñas reviews his professional career, talks about Johan Cruyff’s great legacy in international football, and explains the Cruyff Football project.

How did you start and where has your professional activity evolved?

Like every kid in the country, I wanted to be a footballer. That’s why I played for five years in the RCD Espanyol youth team, but little by little, I was drawn to coaching. For several years, I coached teams in the third division and in the second division abroad. But over time, destiny or my own personality led me more towards management. That’s why, in recent years, I have dedicated most of my time to training coaches at the Catalan School of Coaches and to sports management; I have been the sports director of some grassroots football clubs.

Albert Viñas, Football Manager

How and when did you connect with Cruyff Football?

As a coach, teacher, and football fan, Johan Cruyff’s arrival in Barcelona changed my way of seeing football. I believe he changed the paradigm and introduced modern concepts to the sport. On a personal level, I have a friendship with Albert Capellas, with whom I coincided at the university and in several projects. Years later, Albert explained the Cruyff Football project to me, and I was very excited precisely because of Johan’s figure. Cruyff Football seeks to bring Johan’s philosophy, his football concept, to everyone. Our main objective is for everyone, as he said, to go out onto the field and have fun.

How do you think Johan Cruyff changed the paradigm of the football model?

I remember perfectly when I finished my INEF degree; the paradigm of football was to look for athletes and make them football players. And this was the paradigm that Johan changed: to look for players and train them always thinking about football. Before, planning was based on physical pressure. It was Johan who began to talk about the game model and concepts that everyone now uses: ball possession, pressure after losing the ball, playing in the opponent’s half. Before him, no one had put these ideas on the board, on the pitch, or in our minds. That’s why, for me, he is an icon who changed the paradigm of football.

What are the main services Cruyff Football offers?

We aim to provide services for all football audiences. That’s why we offer training for coaches of all levels. For football clubs, we organize training camps, tournaments, and masterclasses. For players, we also have the campus, as well as residential programs and our national teams. Finally, for federations, we offer consulting.

Another of our approaches is to offer services both at origin and at destination. At origin means that we can travel, send coaches, trainers, teachers, or even teams to participate in activities or training. We can travel anywhere in the world and help a federation or a club to get organized. At destination means that we have our academy, where we can receive them. In Salou, we have the largest private facilities in Spain. Therefore, we receive many teams, clubs, and players who come to our facilities.

What are the success stories in your academy and in your courses?

In my classes, I like to talk about the idea of opportunity. Of course, our parents have given us their genetics, and work enhances that innate talent. The idea of opportunity, or luck, is being in the right place at the right time. But everyone can help create that opportunity: the more activities you do, the more you get out of your environment, the more new challenges you face, the more likely it is to happen. If you are training, traveling, playing, and watching tournaments, the opportunity will appear.

Regarding success stories, we have a player in the Premier League whom we signed from a camp in New York when he was 12 years old. His parents supported him and brought him in, and they helped us get him to our academy for five years. From there, he signed for RCD Espanyol, and from there, he went to the Premier League. He is a clear case where the opportunity opened up when one of our coaches traveled to New York.

We have another case: a boy from Ghana whom we identified when we conducted some tests there. We brought him here; he spent half a year with us, and now he is playing in Belgium. He also had the opportunity for us to meet him, and from here, we helped him to have this projection. But I want to mention other opportunities. There are players who have not reached the elite level of football, but they are good coaches or good professionals because they came to Europe, studied, improved their language skills, and today they are graduates in England or the United States. Their opportunity was to learn our methodology and become football professionals in other roles, not just as players. We have many successful cases where people who take our courses have joined Catalan or Spanish clubs.

In Cruyff Football’s educational offer, the experiences are highlighted: What value do you think they have for players and coaches?

All of us, whether players, coaches, or managers, work in a familiar context. At Cruyff Football, we believe that experiences allow us to face new challenges, get to know new philosophies, and explore new environments. As in any aspect of life, this generates doubts, but once they are overcome, experiences broaden knowledge and make you a better player or a better coach. That is why, at Cruyff Football, we are committed to these formative experiences, ranging from tournaments, trips, and masterclasses to our residential program.

On the other hand, we know that everyone likes to have new experiences, whether in events, courses, or trips. I think we all remember the pleasurable experiences in our lives, which complement football and competition. This is the main reason why, in recent years, I have specialized in providing services and experiences to clubs, federations, players, and teams.