Here at UK Football Schools, we have had a wonderful year of our players from our football academy boarding schools in England go onto trial and sign with football clubs across Europe. Today we look at the recent signing of UK Football Schools player Ohad, who graduated from one of the top football boarding schools in England this summer whilst doing his IB and has now signed for LigaPro side Academica in Portugal.
Ohad moved to the UK in September 2019 to join one of our best English football boarding schools from Thailand to study IB in sixth form. Ohad and his family has been looking for a top football school in England where he could get an excellent education but also continue with his football full time that would mirror a professional club environment, offer excellent training but most importantly give him exposure to clubs across the UK and Europe. Quite soon after his move to joining one of our UK Football boarding schools Ohad was called up to the Israeli U17 national team for a training camp, being in the UK and training in a top football academy in England brought the attention of the national team selectors and they were keen to bring Ohad in.
Ohad really developed well during his first year in the UK and despite the pandemic in early 2020, the top English football academy he was in carried on training right through and playing interschool games, as a result players in the UK football boarding school weren’t affected and could keep on developing, this really helped benefit Ohad and the other players as they were still playing full time where many other players across the world had to cease all footballing activities due to lockdowns.
During Ohad’s time at the football academy boarding school in England, he had the opportunity to train and play matches with a professional English Football League club who partner with the football boarding school in England. The link is unique as the professional club coaches take the training sessions each week, players have full access to the pro club facilities where the 1st team train and Ohad like the other players had the opportunity to showcase in front of the pro club scouts every day whilst here in the football boarding school in England.
Ohad graduated this summer with excellent IB grades, he had planned to go to Kings in London but an opportunity came through in Portugal for him to trial with Academica and after a success spell there he has gone onto sign with them. We always say to become a professional player you need two things, the first you need to be good enough and secondly you need to be seen. The top UK Football boarding schools our UK Football Schools team recommend provide firstly an opportunity to receive an excellent education which can help you get into a top university anywhere in the world, but they also provide opportunities for players to develop in an elite environment, work with professional coaches, train at excellent facilities but importantly give you the exposure to professional clubs where you can be seen by scouts across Europe.
Ohad appeared in the Sports Telly 2022 World’s Top Rising Talents, this is very exciting and he was in good stead alongside players from teams such as Ajax, Lazio and Boca Juniors. We are delighted for Ohad, the two years of hard work, dedication and sacrifice of leaving home at a young age to join a UK football academy boarding school has paid off so far and we wish him all the best at his new club in Portugal.
