Marco Onorato: My FBA Internship experience at Girona FC

My FBA internship experience with Girona FC has been unforgettable, something I could have never imagined when I applied for the FBA program. This speaks to the incredible job the FBA staff does in placing each Candidate according to their skills and preferences, and I am truly grateful for the opportunity they provided me.

First of all, I was very lucky that my time in Girona coincided with the incredible season they are having. I had the opportunity to attend four first-team games, and it was truly mesmerizing – the quality of the team’s play, the atmosphere, the people, everything. You can feel there is something brewing in the club, and people are buying into it. It is a contagious feeling that you almost can’t describe. Needless to say, I am now a diehard Girona fan. This team will always have a place in my heart because of what I experienced there.

Now, onto what I actually did at Girona: My official role was “Academy International Scouting Intern.” However, since the department isn’t big, I ended up assisting with tasks related to National scouting as well. Before my internship, I thought I watched too much football, but in those three months at Girona, I never stopped! I watched football at breakfast, lunch, dinner, and everything in between. I barely had time to watch professional football; sometimes, I had to choose between watching the Champions League or a U17 match between Poland and Georgia, for example. Thankfully, I loved it. My job was literally watching football. Incredible.

One of my main responsibilities was putting together player videos for our weekly meetings. Together with Oscar, my superior, and Borja, a colleague, we selected four or five international players we liked and presented them to the team for analysis. I would generally go on Wyscout or Eyeball and cut a series of clips of the players performing offensive and defensive actions, putting them all together in one 30-minute-long video with CapCut. As time passed, I ended up doing the same with the players the National scouts wanted to present as well.

Another significant part of my job, and one of my favorites, was meeting with the City Football Group scouts each week. I can’t go into much detail about the meetings, but they were and still are an amazing source of knowledge for me. I’ve been meeting with some of the best scouts in international football, something I could not have even dreamed about before accepting the internship. Through these meetings, I’ve been able to chat and get to know the people at City at a more personal level, extending my professional network with some really amazing individuals. It truly is an honor to represent the club in these meetings each week, and I am very grateful for the trust put in me to handle this responsibility.

Additionally, I could not write about my internship experience at Girona without mentioning Mario and Antonio. They are two very experienced scouts with whom I grew very close during my time there. The bond I made with them is something I will always remember throughout my career. Anywhere you go to work, you would be lucky to find people like them. Almost every Saturday, Mario, who lives in a town around 45 minutes away from Girona, would come to pick me up in the city and take me to Barcelona to watch different youth academy games in the city. We watched several different age groups of FC Barcelona, Espanyol, Sabadell, Damm, etc. Virtually every Catalonian youth team there is. Mario and Antonio basically took me under their wing and taught me so much I didn’t know about football scouting. I make a special mention of them, but it wouldn’t be fair either to not mention all the other guys in the office. Albert (Academy Director), Siscu (Second in command), Edgar, Alvaro, Abel, and Oscar, whom I already mentioned and is someone I also share a special relationship with, all made me feel like part of the team from day one.