Despite the need to compete and be in the first places of the Colombian League, Independiente Medellín and Atlético Nacional do not forget their quarries.
In recent years, each time the players of both teams make their debut as younger professionals. El Rojo included in the match against Tigres, for the Betplay Cup, this Wednesday, a 16-year-old boy, Andrés Felipe Alfonso. While Green also gave the opportunity to creative Kevin Parra in the last match of the League, against Águilas Doradas, last Sunday.
Alfonso, right back, was born in 2005 in Bogotá, but grew up in Villavicencio. From the age of 5 he dreamed of being a footballer. He began his process in football at the Deportivo Semillano club. In 2019, at the age of 13, he arrived in the capital of Antioquia to present tests at Medellín and was accepted in the minor divisions.
In the middle of last year, Andrés Felipe was invited by coach Julio Comesaña to the training sessions of the main team and convinced him to be with the club this season. On Wednesday he fulfilled his dream of debuting as a professional. Don Humberto’s son, Doña Angélica and Santiago’s brother played against Tigres and thus began to write his professional history.
“We have been doing important work in our basic forces for some time. We spend 3,500 million pesos a year to sustain these minor divisions. We have a clubhouse close to the stadium and we have brought in various leaders to work with these youngsters. In today’s team we have 9 homegrown players: Luis Erney Vásquez, Yulián Gómez, Didier Bueno, Yesid Díaz, Andrés Felipe Alfonso, Miguel Monsalve, Juan Manuel Cuestas, Bryan Castrillón and Andrés Stiven Rodríguez”, said the president of the DIM, Daniel Ossa.
For his part, the intention of the coach of Nacional Hernan Dario Herrera It is also to promote the quarry and a clear example was the opportunity he gave Kevin Parra in the duel against Águilas.
“I am a creative midfielder with a change of pace and dribbling, who needs to improve a bit in the definition”, he describes himself.
FHe was the best Ponyfootball player in 2016, but it has not had an easy road to reach professionalism.
At the age of 7, he went to live alone in a group home in the city of Pereira, he experienced economic difficulties and hunger, but he himself assures that these factors led him to overcome himself to help his family move forward.
After his debut, “Arriero” Herrera highlighted the personality with which he entered the game, and on multiple occasions he has reiterated that “we must return to the quarry, they have a sense of belonging.”
