BarcelonaAlmost the entire population of the White Borges would fit in the Borussia pavilion in Düsseldorf, one of the most important table tennis clubs in Europe. The 6,000 inhabitants of the capital of Les Garrigues against the fans who fill the house of Borussia, the current champion of the men’s Champions, on European nights. Led by Timo Boll, one of the best European players, Borussia made a treble last year. And now he receives the Catalan team in a special duel. “It’s like the cathedral of European table tennis. They are the favorites, but this is the second phase of the Champions League and two of the four teams in the group are classified. So we will fight to be second,” says Marc Duran, one of the players Catalans of the CTT Borges.
The president of the club is Enric Vall. A man with a prodigious memory. He remembers every date, like October 5, 2007. “That day I told everyone in the club if they wanted to build the best table tennis club in the world. The club that is the most beloved, that people who know us don’t forget. we can only do it with three precepts: humility, generosity and joy. The day the toilet is clogged, I myself, the president, will go to unclog it, “he says with a laugh. No kidding. Thanks to the fact that everyone is doing their part, such a small population has been playing international competitions every year since 2006, even though they had never played in the Champions League before. “We are the team that has been competing internationally for the most years in a row, without fail,” says Vall. “Our goal is to take care of the base and become a beloved club in the region,” he added before facing the second phase of the Champions League from 3 to 7 November. Rivals, in addition to Timo Boll’s Borussia Düsseldorf, are Sporting Portugal and SPG Felbermayr in the Austrian city of Wels. In the first phase, the team formed by the Catalans Marc Duran and Joan Masip, the Swede Viktor Brodd and the Alicante Alberto Lillo was first in the group to defeat the Portuguese of the GDCS Juncal, the French of the AS Pontoise Cergy and the CSS-SZAK Odorheiu Secuiesc Romanian, the team he hosted.
And all thanks to a chaplain
In Les Borges Blanques they explain that this sport came to the village thanks to the Capuchin father Pere Ràfols, who practiced it with the students of the Col·legi dels Frares Caputxins, where a first team would be formed in the 60s. One of those players was Enric Vall. “An exceptional person, he taught us a lot of values. People like him have made this sport important for so many people, like myself. In fact, thanks to this sport I have the life I have,” he recalls, as in the table tennis courts met his wife, county champion in the 70s. Vall, now retired from the family business led by his brothers, is one of the sponsors of the entity. Live for this sport. He has tried to contact Bill Gates or Gerard Piqué to promote a sport he knows everything about. Every anecdote, every champion. He has come to communicate with Chinese players with his language. “All thanks to this sport, which according to a NASA study is the most complicated in the world. In a small space, you have to react to return such a small ball at incredible speeds,” explains a man who is proud: “We “We have made it known throughout Europe, competing every year. We have made the name of Les Borges a national and international reference.” And all with an annual budget of 170,000 euros for a club with 80 federated athletes counting all categories.
Vall’s dream is for Borges Blanques to be loved by everyone who knows him. Viktor Brodd, the Swedish player this season, had never known such a beautiful club. “Top players play different leagues at the same time. Viktor lives in Sweden and when we have a game I go to the airport and sleep at home. He loves the atmosphere in Les Borges,” says Vall , born in La Pobla de Cérvoles. “I was admitted to the Capuchin school in Les Borges, where I discovered this sport,” he adds. Vall has held a position at the Catalan Table Tennis Federation, from where he managed in 2014 to inaugurate the table tennis training center of Les Borges, a facility that has allowed them to make a leap forward.
Turned into a club with a lot of boys and girls playing in the base, the CT Borges would make debut in the masculine Superdivision in 2005 after the ascent obtained in the final phase, played in Sabadell. In 2011, for the first time, Borges would be proclaimed league champion. A few years later the first Cup would arrive. Internationally, in 2009 he reached the semifinals of the European Cup, although his debut in the Champions League, a competition born in 1998, has not arrived so far. And the first phase was a great success. The present and the future of the CTT Borges happen to be more than a club, and at the moment already is working in 16 schools of primary and secondary education and in 4 centers of disabilities and has agreements with different entities of mental and physical disabilities . A team with roots, that takes care of its people, its community, but does not give up competing. Right now, it is the 13th club in the European ranking. And you will fly to Düsseldorf ready to enjoy. “Do you know how many table tennis tables there are on the streets of Düsseldorf? About 650. Many. In France they have 200,000 chips, in Germany more. In Spain, just 20,000. It is one of the most practiced sports around the world. Of those that contribute more, but a lot of people here still see it as something to have fun with. famous for its oils. In Les Borges they already have a second reason to be proud.
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