Ben Slevin is living the dream coaching with Real Madrid Foundation

BEN Slevin, a former SETU student, from Portarlington has landed the job of a lifetime. Ben gone to Madrid to work for the Real Madrid Foundation and says it’s been an incredible ride for somebody who loves soccer.

“The experience is unbelievable. It’s as good as it can be. For somebody who loves soccer, this is the best thing ever apart from being a professional footballer. This is the next best thing. It’s deadly, I really enjoy it.

“In terms of all the experiences I’ve had it’s been amazing. I’ve been doing a lot of travelling, all through America, and other places. In terms of travelling, it’s unbelievable. I get to travel for my job, they let me go home every now and again. So it’s like three quarters of the time away, a quarter at home. So like three weeks away, one week at home. So it’s savage like that. I get to travel and make money for it so it can’t get much better than that,” says Ben.

Ben, who graduated from the Sports Coaching and Business Management Course in SETU Carlow and has experience in coaching with Wexford and the Irish Special Olympics team, said he came across the position almost by accident.

“When I was in college, I went out to American on a J1 in the summer in my second year of college. I was working at a kids camp and I was coaching a kid in football. I was finished college for the summer so I said I’d give this camp a try and see what happens and talk to as many people as possible.

“When I was coaching out there, I met a kid who said he had been in the Real Madrid Foundation and trained in it and been on a few trips with them. I asked him for his manager’s contact details, I hadn’t ever met anybody with a contact as big as that before. I rang the manager and said I need this job, I’ll be a great fit. I just hyped myself up and I helped him out for a week and it went really well.” His job involves a mix of scouting and coaching.

“My job involves going out to America and getting people from the East Coast of America and bringing them to Madrid. We do camps out in America too where we bring a coach from the Academy out and we do camps out there and anybody who impresses, we bring them out to Madrid after the summer.

“I work with a company called Akinji and we link up with the Real Madrid Foundation. We’re still Real Madrid Foundation powered by this company. We bring kids to England to Premier League teams as part of it. We have trips to Germany coming up as well so there’s a lot of travelling involved.

“I’m preparing to go to Congo right now. The Real Madrid Foundation have linked up with Congo, and we’re going to bring a few coaches from the academy at Real Madrid and we’re going to deliver a one week training course to kids who don’t have the money to afford this kind of experience. We’ll be in the Congo team’s National Stadium. Hopefully it’ll be up to 150 kids.

“I’m a coach but I’m also a director in the company so I help out with all the organisation in bringing all the kids over to different countries. These guys come from America to Real Madrid to do this programme and they stay in a really nice hotel and we bring them to training in the Real Madrid facilities where they get five full training sessions with Real Madrid academy coaches and Real Madrid Foundation coaches.” Ben added that being part of this is cool as you get to see Real Madrid legends and see different things.

“The atmosphere there is crazy, you see some crazy things in the Real Madrid training ground. The Real players are usually secluded to their area but you do get to see some legends. I got to meet Roberto Carlos. He would have been part of the representation of the Foundation, and he comes out and says hi to everybody.

“I’ve met Arbeloa also, he came out before. Just yesterday, on the pitch beside us was Bayer Leverkusen training because they just played Atletico Madrid the night before in the Champions League so they’re allowed to just come and train on the grounds. So you get these cool experiences.”