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Hugo Novoa, the Spanish ‘bullet’ from Leipzig who learned from kicks: “It was impossible to stop”

The Spaniard Hugo Novoa (Bertamiráns, 2003), a player for RB Leipzig, Real Madrid’s rival today in the Champions League (9:00 p.m.), is a footballer with the gift of opportunity. A skill that began to develop with furtive goals in the streets of his towna bedroom in Santiago de Compostela, where she resisted, along with her generation, as one of the last to still play with jerseys as goals.

He stood out from a young age, but he knew how to grow and wait. First in the team from his municipality, Bertamiráns FC. Later, in his love interest, Deportivo. Now in a team that is playing for its pass to the Champions League round of 16 and that has bet heavily on this under-21 international. Novoa decided to pack his bags at the age of 16, ignoring the interest of the big teams in Spain, to join the German Red Bull franchise, a model based on young talent.

Three minutes

In October 2021, he made use of his precious gift of opportunity by scoring on his debut against Greuther Fürth (4-1). He needed just three minutes to break Kimmich’s record and become the youngest goalscorer (18 years, 8 months and 29 days) in the history of the German club. This past weekend, before receiving Real Madrid, he did it again. He came out in the final stretch and scored a goal that allowed RB Leipzig to salvage a point against Augsburg (3-3).

“He has potential and capacity for what he sets out to do. He is in a unique scenario and now he has to continue working to open more doors. This has only just begun, ”Juan Villamisar, Deportivo base football coach, who followed him from Benjamin, assures EL PERIÓDICO DE ESPAÑA. “Already by then it was difficult not to notice him,” says the technician of an entity that ended up tying him up in his first year as a fry.

That first year as a blue and white he still combined it with the futsal team of his ‘home’ team. “Since he was little, Hugo handled the ball wonderfully. He was very generous with others. Nothing divine. He played for fun. He was humble and calm, as he still is”, Sergio Penas, sports director of Bertamiráns FC, tells this newspaper, who relates that, despite his takeoff, Novoa continues to be closely linked to his land.

example at home

In fact, he served as a mentor at the last campus that organized its first club. “He gave a talk to a boy who is standing out, like him, since he was a baby. He listened to him dumbfounded. It had such an effect on him that he changed his attitude. He became calmer and more friendly with his teammates”, says Penas, who regrets not having enjoyed the RB Leipzig player’s talent more.

At just 19 years old, Novoa accumulates meetings in the Bundesliga, Champions and Europa League, in addition to a German Cup. By career, his benchmark is Dani Olmo, with whom he shares a dressing room at the Red Bull Arena and who also stood out in the lower categories of the Spanish team, for which Novoa has been called up since cadet. Other teammates on Luis de la Fuente’s lists also militate abroad (Mario Gila at Lazio, Fontán on loan from Celta in the Dutch Go Ahead…) in what is a new wave of export of Spanish talent.

Generation of 2003

Novoa transmits what he learned with great attention in formative football. “In the children’s category we had some discrepancy, because He said that they kicked him a lot and that they were intentional. But actually it was because the players were late and it was hard to stop! Its greatest virtue continues to be its ability to overcome opponents while driving, as well as its power to break into space”, says Villamisar, who also lost control of it.

In his last year as a cadet, the winger already entered the dynamics of the sports youth, where he was part of a generation, that of 2003, which was crowned with the Champions Cup. Thus, Novoa grew up alongside players like Alvaro Carreras (Preston North End, on loan from Manchester United), Noel (Real Madrid Castilla) or Tinker Bell (in the Deportivo first team).

“His great success was going to Leipzig, a club that watches over the quarry”, assures Penas and Villamisar agrees with him: “It is a great showcase. The results they have achieved year after year are commendable. I know that the team’s commitment to Hugo was brutal”. Novoa has returned the confidence overcoming language difficulties and being away from home, which has always been his refuge and springboard. His father, a lover of athletics, instilled his passion in him since he was a child. This has allowed him to win a fund that he has been promoting and that makes him a player with versatility that convinced, first Julian Nagelsmann, and now Marco Rose.

In his first season, with RB Leipzig under-17, he stood out with goals and assists. As of 2020/21 he began to enter the first team lists. He is a very versatile player, who has played as a right winger, he can be accompanying a striker or even as a striker”, explains Andrés Weiss, a specialist in German football, who predicts him to be a leading player with Rose due to the scheme he uses, “where the winger it’s actually an interior.”

end or side

“He can play both as a winger and as a right winger -something he already did at Deportivo, according to his coach-, the two positions in which he has played most lately. He stands out a lot for his physique. It has a lot of travel, power and the ability to make your band long. With the ball he also has overflow and even good abilities to find and generate goals. These characteristics adapt perfectly to the context of German football”, says Álex Gesto, ‘scout’ and analyst, who, like everyone who knows him, predicts that It will not take long for him to make a hole for himself in the first team of Leipzigwith which he has a contract, for the moment, until 2024.

“Soon we will see him as an established starter. And later, he will put the ceiling wherever he wants, as long as the variables of football, such as luck or injuries, respect him, ”says the Bertamiráns sports director, who shares with Villamisar, his coach at Deportivo, “the pride of having seen him burning stages to fulfill a dream”.

A goal reached at full speed by the band, but with the necessary pause to mature each change with the timed precision of a street player who believes in the methodology. A modern footballer who made a mutual bet on Leipzig, but who has a deep respect for his origins. As indicated by his committed faith in Deportivo, to which he remained faithful despite the siren songs of teams like Real Madrid, which it will try to overcome to prolong the European gallop of The Red Bulls.

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