World Footy News

Since 2008, Barcelona's Aussie Rules club the Cornellà Bocs have counted among their number a player by the name of Juan Carlos Herrera. The Spanish name doesn't seem out of place at first glance, but Herrera's background is a little different from the usual kind of recruit found kicking the footy in Catalonia - he's actually from Bolivia, and possibly even more surprisingly, he's just one of a growing number of Latin Americans who have picked up the Australian game in Europe.

With large numbers of Latinos migrating to Spain for better career opportunities, the Catalan footy league has counted Brazilians, Argentines and Ecuadorians in its ranks over the years, with the Catalonia-based Argentines even fielding a squad at last year's WAFF World 9s in Valls.

In France too, last week's French Cup saw Venezuelan Marlys Maldonaldo pull on the boots for the Toulouse Crocodiles. A search through the Footy Record reveals a number of Brazilians have kicked the footy in Sweden, and the current games record holder for the Helsinki Heatseekers is one Fernando Leon, a Colombian who also made the trip to Melbourne last year as part of the Finland Icebreakers squad at the 2008 International Cup.

Having left his home town of Santa Cruz in Bolivia ten years ago to search for work in Spain, Herrera's journey to become probably the first Bolivian to take up Australian rules football began when he accompanied a French friend of his to see the Bocs play a match in Valls.

Watching from the stands, the keen soccer fan was quickly hooked by the Australian game, particularly the non-stop ball movement, and decided to join with the Bocs for training.

Getting the hang of the skills and securing a place in the Bocs' backline, Herrera profited from Cornella's good showing in the 2008 season, developing his game and playing in a premiership side. 2009 saw him play in the forward line and kick a few goals.

Despite his 45 years of age, the "Cruceño" wants to keep improving in footy and hopes to see more of his compatriots take up the game. For the time being, he'll have to make do with representing the Bocs, although he also competed as an honorary Argentine at the World 9s in Valls last year.

As well as Latin Americans, the LFAC have a few Senegalese members, who put together a team almost from scratch to compete last year. The majority of Team Senegal was composed of soccer players who were recruited by Abdul Diakhate and Alioune Cisse, two Senegalese nationals who play Aussie rules for Valls. Alexis Schimpf, a Frenchman with experience in footy both in France and Catalonia, tells WorldFootyNews that Abdul in particular is a talented sportsman, and an excellent soccer goalkeeper.

Schimpf tells however, that the Senegalese side struggled to get together for training. "Due to work commitments and other time restraints, they didn't have a great deal of opportunity to train together and work on the rules and gameplay. However, they still played their first match last September, facing the Argentines of Spain, and came away with a narrow victory, helped by a few Catalans and myself."

During the World 9s, the Senegalese again fielded a side, although they went down in both their matches in this tournament. As Schimpf says, "there's certainly a lot to learn still, and it's still difficult getting 9 Senegalese together for a match at the same time, but the team has been born, even if for the moment the Senegalese are all from around Tarragona."

Alexis Schimpf is now in Vilnius, where he hopes to form Lithuania's first club. Back in Catalonia, the season wrapped up last month with the Bocs going down to Valls in this year's Grand Final, but the best of the two sides will be on show in Zagreb at the EU Cup later this year.