“In the long term, it is essential to create some actions and daily habits that, repeated over time, will bear fruit and have results. This is key to make success in your performance.”
Social networks, magazines, and TV entertainment programmes are full of footage of football stars in the garden of their homes, armoured inside private housing estates, playing with a ball with their children and dogs, conveying to their followers a singular impression of happiness.
However, if they didn’t have to give that image, if they could hide, they would surely jump the fence that isolates them from the rest and escape to the little field in a nearby park to return to dribbling with a change of direction and kick each other, recklessly but without malice, with children they know nothing about. With them, they share a general and strange idea of happiness: reaching the starting line-up in the team of their dreams or another that will allow them to fulfil themselves as footballers and as people, in the not too distant future.
“I define myself as a ‘6’ but have been evolving to ‘8’ or ’10’. I am a quality player who goes out with the ball and gives passes between lines, as well as the ability to provide the last pass.”
These reflections made me look for someone who embodied the idea that football goes beyond the sporting aspect. That search led me to find Vicente Rafael Valor Martínez, Vicente Valor. Midfielder, born in 1998, in Sant Joan d’Alacant (San Juan de Alicante) – Alicante/Spain, a municipality eight kilometres away from the city centre of Alicante and home to such important and prestigious institutions as the Health Sciences Campus of the Miguel Hernández University and the San Juan de Alicante University Hospital. On the Alicante coast, the temperature generally varies from 7 °C to 31 °C and rarely drops below three °C or rises above 33 °C.
I did not find Vicente on the warm Spanish east coast; it was further north, 7.4 kilometres south of the coast of Iceland, on Heimaey Island, the only populated island of the fifteen islands that make up the archipelago of Vestmannaeyjar, where the still active volcano, which gives its name to the island and with its last major eruption in January 1973, lasted 5 months, enlarging the island of Heimaey by 13.5km. The temperature is far from being similar to that enjoyed in Alicante; the south of Iceland has temperatures ranging from 1 °C to 13 °C and, on some occasions, the least, of -4 °C or rising to more than 15 °C.
“I had never played in those conditions, but the coaching staff seemed to like it, and at the end of December, I signed the contract with them; it was a very crazy situation.”
Adaptation and personal growth, like his countryman, the poet and playwright Miguel Hernández, who was unsatisfied with being a goat herder, his willpower and self-improvement led him to become one of Spain’s leading authors. I see Vicente reflected in Miguel Hernández however, V. Valor would not have been the source of inspiration for the poem called ¨LLAMO A LA JUVENTUD¨ (I call on the youth), given that the footballer does not belong to that sleepy youth to which the poet from Alicante calls to wake up, in one of his stanzas we can read:
Sangre que no se desborda,
juventud que no se atreve,
ni es sangre, ni es juventud,
ni relucen, ni florecen.
“I know that my ability to adapt has grown abysmally. Now, I can adapt to any situation and any environment.”
At ÍBV Vestmannaeyjar, a football club recently promoted to the 1st division. A team that has been promoted over the last few seasons and with a past full of triumphs, with 3 Icelandic Championships, 5 times Icelandic Cup winner and 1 League Cup title, it wants to establish itself in the top flight. It has formed a group of players with an average age of 24.8 years. There are only two foreigners in the squad: the 33-year-old Norwegian Mikkel Hastings, the team’s third goalkeeper, and Vicente Valor, who, at 26, joined the Icelandic team in February 2024 and has a contract until New Year’s Eve 2025.
Ninety-five hours by car and boat separate the two locations, but it took Vicente much longer to get there. He began his football career with 14 years old in the Juvenil A team of Kelme (Elche), challenging transit for a teenager who plays in the team of his town, happens to do so in a team at regional level, remains in the Kelme until the 2017/18 season when he finishes his stage of youth, is then when Vicente signed by La Nucia CF, 4th Spanish division, where he does not play anything, the upward projection of youth is cut. Instead of despairing, in December 2017, he moved to Elche B, where he plays 4 or 5 games. It ends a disastrous season on an emotional level and almost ends his career. But Vicente wants to stay in football and embarks on a new adventure; he signs for Estudiantes de Murcia, Murcia, an hour’s drive from Alicante. Estudiantes plays in the 3rd division, where he does not play a single match; the lousy performance of the team in the 1st round meant the dismissal of the coach, Vicente, with the new coach plays about 20 games, but not in his position as a midfielder but as a fullback, in the 2nd round could not recover enough points lost by the poor performance of the team during the first and Estudiantes is relegated.
“I always try to give my best in training. I try to prove daily that I am fit to play at any time”. With a certain melancholy, Vicente tells us about this steep path on his way through Spanish football, the “non-professional”, the one that sometimes is played with more pain than glory, the one whose reward is not an astronomical amount of euros but that a neighbour sees you the next day in the street where you live, and says to you: “good game yesterday Vicente”.
Novelda (Alicante), recently relegated from 2ªB to 3ª division, had noticed Vicente and decided to sign the midfielder. It is there, despite the economic difficulties of the club, which means that the squad only has 15 players, headed by a couple of veterans from the team that was relegated from 2ªB, but with a group of 20-year-olds with enthusiasm, they enjoy football again, they are physically and mentally well, they have a coaching staff that sees in the group possibilities beyond the mere sporting staff.
“The mentality has always been to train to the maximum so that the coach can gradually take me into account; maybe I’m not a starter, but little by little, I can be one.”
However, a new obstacle arises: the pandemic caused by COVID-19, the confinement, and the break in competitive rhythm frustrates Novelda’s chances of promotion. When the competition resumed, nothing was the same, neither in the world nor in football. The 20/21 season began for Vicente in the 3rd division, this time with Crevillente Deportivo; it was his fourth year in the 3rd division and this induced monotony, especially if a group was not a group and the individual struggle to excel, an aspect of the club that displeased the Alicante-born player’s conception of the team.
In November 2020, an opportunity arose, which had previously arisen, but Vicente did not think it appropriate to take advantage of it. Without having returned to study English since he finished high school, and the English that is given in the Spanish high school does not serve to solve the daily life, I have lived it as Vicente and so many other millions of Spanish students, he embarks on the project of going to the University Soccer in the U.S. On January 21, he was already in New Hampshire at Franklin Pierce University, “I decided not to consult with my family and friends. I did not want to listen to any other opinion”, he had to do a month of isolated quarantine to be able to play with the Franklin Pierce Ravens. The obstacle is meeting 15 other Spaniards and leaving English aside until his teammates finish their master’s degree. Vicente, who is studying sports management, has to force himself to use English in his studies and daily life.
Living in Iceland was an experience that, despite the cold and isolation, enriched Vicente both personally and professionally. “The weather can be harsh, especially in winter. You get used to the wind and the cold, but it’s the long hours of darkness that take getting used to. The people here are very kind and have a strong connection to nature, which is a contrast to the urban lifestyle in Spain. It’s a simpler way of living, but it teaches you to appreciate what’s important,” he said when reflecting on life on the island. The environment, while physically demanding, has no resemblance to the lands of Alicante, with no pine forests, no holm oaks, with pastures wet with dew drops, plagued by glaciers that sleepily walk to flow into an icy sea in contrast to the warm Mediterranean where Vicente comes from, a harsh landscape that has also served the player well, has brought him closer to the team and allowed him to grow stronger mentally.
Two rewarding years of learning to live alone, study another language, work, meet people from different countries, and travel to a new country are aspects that transcend football and make the mind open and form you as a person. On a sporting level, the Ravens win the regular championship every year; in the first year, they are at the door of the playoffs to play for the national championship, a title they win in the second year. He won the title again in his third year in the U.S.A., playing for Bryant University, where he studied Sociology and Business Administration. The Bryant Bulldogs will be his last college team. In February 2024, he signed for the recently relegated to the 2nd division of Iceland, ÍBV Vestmannaeyjar, with excellent prospects of promotion; anything else would be a disaster and a failure; neither one nor the other. Vicente Valor Martinez’s IBV has been promoted to the 1st division. Vicente returned after the promotion and temporarily returned to Bryant University to take the exams he had pending to finish his degree. After a few days in Alicante, he returned to the island of Heimaey to prepare for the IBV season in the 1st division.
“I’ve had teammates who came to training to walk around, and with that attitude, they gave the coach the reason.”
This is a brief story of one of many young people who see their dreams come true: to play football as a professional and be happy doing what they long for, “Yo lo soñé”, this song by Omar Montes, Vicente’s favourite singer, perfectly defines our interviewee. His dreams are not just dreams; they are complete realities.. His dreams are not just dreams; they are complete realities. It is not necessary to play in big stadiums or live in a luxurious house; it is enough to be fulfilled by enjoying what you do, as you enjoyed playing in the little field in the park or on the school pitches.
We must always aspire to the maximum, but if we do not achieve it or the obstacles make us feel that we are moving away from it, we must know how to use secondary roads instead of motorways to get there. We aim to ensure that young people are not discouraged by the stones in the road and that they should not consider them to be time-wasting but simply a bend in the road.