The coming month of July will see the opening of the first Barça Academy in the Philippines, in Manila. The academy will be based in the capital and will  welcome children who wish to learn how to play football the Barça way, with coaching staff well trained in the Club’s sporting philosophy.

The blaugranas organised a first camp in the city last November, which has served as a prelude to the opening of the Barça Academy Manila. The school is a natural step forward for young players who wish to develop their football skills and play the Barça way.

With the addition of the Barça Academy Manila, FC Barcelona now has 32 academies all around the world. With the new academy, it takes the total to 14 in Asia with six in Japan, four in India, two in Kyrgyzstan and one in Singapore.

Barça legend link to the Philippines

Paulino Alcántara, a Club legend, was born in the Philippines. The striker had a Filipino mother and a Spanish father and became a club hero when he scored a hat-trick for the team when he was just 15 years old. Alcántara followed that up with another two hat-tricks in his next two appearances and went on to score 404 goals for the club, 143 in official competition in just 132 games, making him 7^th on the all-time list of goal scorers.