Global Fútbol

2023 could end up being one of the most important years in the history of SD Huesca. The club recently presented its most important academy project, the Base Aragonesa de Fútbol – the Aragonese Football Base, in English.  

The project boasts a residence for housing 80 young footballers, while the complex has a total of four football pitches as well as additional dressing rooms, a gym, a press room, classrooms, a medical centre and more. This is a big step forward for the club’s youth development programme, so much so that SD Huesca general director Jose Luis Ortas has described the Aragonese Football Base as “probably the most important project in our history”.

Ismael Arilla, the sporting director of the SD Huesca academy, agrees and stated: “The Aragonese Football Base is much more than a sports centre. It is a comprehensive facility for developing athletes. It is the cornerstone on which we’ll build the future of SD Huesca. Having our own sporting complex will mark a before and after in the way the club works. Logically, the medium- and long-term future of the club is all about the Aragonese Football Base project.”

At SD Huesca, significant focus has been placed on youth development in recent years as the directors believe that this will be key to long-term sporting success. At the same time, the club from Aragon has been working on expanding the SD Huesca brand overseas. The Aragonese Football Base will help the institution with both objectives, as they can combine the ambitions for youth development and for internationalisation. 

As Arilla explained: “We understand that Huesca is a city of just over 50,000 inhabitants, so we need to attract talent from further afield. With this in mind, the Aragonese Football Base has been designed to welcome players to join the academy teams, while it can also host international players who want to come to study and improve their footballing level. For us, it is very important that every player who comes here feels comfortable and happy, while it is especially important for us that they mature in an academic, sporting and human sense. We are investing in the future with a clear, simple and humble youth academy plan, while we also now have the advantage of this facility where the study area, residence and training pitches are all within 100 metres. The project is very exciting for everyone.”

How the Aragonese Football Base can strengthen SD Huesca’s links to Japan

SD Huesca will look to further strengthen the club’s links with Japan through the Aragonese Football Base. Over recent seasons, the Spanish club has struck various alliances with partners in Japan, helped by the presence of Kento Hashimoto in the current squad and by the strong relationship the club maintains with former player Shinji Okazaki, who is an SD Huesca ambassador in Japan.

To develop a presence in Japan, SD Huesca have set up Japanese social media profiles, supported the creation of a fan group in Kyoto called Peña Nipona SD Huesca, signed a sponsorship agreement with Skylight Consulting, built together with Okazaki the SDH Academy Japan in Hyogo and established a collaboration agreement with FC Basara Hyogo.

As part of the latter partnership, the Spanish club are planning to incorporate six Japanese players into a new SD Huesca C team. On this, Diego Pesqué, the head of internationalisation at the club, stated: “This project is part of the agreement signed this season with FC Basara Hyogo. The Japanese players coming to Huesca will come from FC Basara. The aim is, on the one hand, to offer an attractive destination for Japanese talent. When they arrive at SD Huesca C, they will come into contact with professional football given that SD Huesca C (Basara SD Huesca) will be a team at the service of both SD Huesca B and the first team. On the other hand, we also want to reinforce our links with Japan and with the country’s youth football.”

It is clear to see how such a project can be beneficial to SD Huesca in both a sporting and internationalisation sense. By establishing such a strong foothold in Japan and by offering real sporting opportunities for Japanese youngsters in Spain, SD Huesca are seeing the benefits and this is sparking interest from Japanese businesses who are keen to work with or even sponsor the club and the academy.

Pesqué explained: “There is interest from a Japanese company in financially supporting the academy project. This opportunity has come up thanks to the impact the first stage of the SDH Academy Japan project has had in Japan. This partner is interested in SD Huesca’s youth academy and the Aragonese Football Base and that makes us proud because it confirms the good work that the club is doing in this sense.”

SD Huesca really have taken youth development and internationalisation seriously over the past few years and they’re now starting to reap the rewards of this strategy. As Arilla, the sporting director of the academy, concluded: “The internationalisation of the club is one of SD Huesca’s core objectives and strengths. On a sporting level, we are trying to establish partnerships and synergies in foreign countries and with foreign clubs, both European and Asian, and we’re not ruling anything out. It’s all about learning from each other, because in this way we improve together.”