Chat with young footballers from Barça Academy in the United States

Juanjo Carricondo and Vanessa Romero share their experience as FC Barcelona footballers with more than 200 boys and girls

25 May 23

Former FC Barcelona players, Juanjo Carricondo and Vanessa Romero, have starred in two "Life Experience" talks with groups of young footballers from different Barça Academy in the United States. These meet and greet meetings are the result of the collaboration of the FC Barcelona Players Association and the Futbol First company and have been one of the special activities of the campuses that have taken them to Barcelona in recent weeks. Carricondo and Romero have shared with the attendees - and family members - their experience as footballers, with special attention to their beginnings and also what their experience as FC Barcelona players has brought them. An experience that they currently maintain also as members of the Group.

Having played for Barça, a privilege that marks a lifetime

Both Romero and Carricondo emphasized in their interventions that having played for Barça was a privilege that will be marked by them forever. An experience that also - according to Vanessa - "means responsibility, towards you and also towards the Club", and a stage in which, when it ends, "you realize that the values you have learned at Barça are what differentiates it from other clubs". Both agreed that the most valuable thing they have left from their time at the Blaugrana Club is that of teamwork.

Xerrada Life Experience Juanjo Carricondo

Two international sports races

Another point of coincidence in the sporting trajectories of Juanjo Carricondo and Vanessa Romero is that they both played outside of Spain. Although for very different reasons. While Carricondo was in teams in the United Kingdom or Cyprus as a professional footballer, Romero accompanied his partner, the also Barcelona player Fede Bessone, in his professional career in England, and she also ended up playing in women's teams there. Precisely, the existing differences between men and women were present throughout Vanessa's talk, which affected the social difficulties she encountered throughout her sporting life to be able to practice the sport she liked the most.

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