2024 Futsal World Cup: Is it possible to study a university degree while playing in a World Cup?
IThe career of a futsal player is ephemeral, like that of most athletes, and crossing the barrier of 30 marks a before and after. Dídac is the goalkeeper of the Spanish national team, as well as a father and university student.
Two years ago he decided to take the step of enrolling in a degree that he now combines with the World Cup of Futsal being held in Uzbekistan. Training, matches and studying in his free time make up the routine of a player who at 34 years of age understood the importance of building a future beyond 40×20.
Ask: When did you start studying for a university degree?
Answer: I started three years ago, when we were in the World Cup in Lithuania. I decided that I had to do something because I was getting closer to the end. I thought it was a good time to start and I decided to study sports management.
“This will end sooner or later”
Q. Why did you make that decision?
TO. I’ve always had the nagging feeling that I had to do something. Sooner or later this will end. We’ll have a long time ahead of us in which we’ll surely have to do things and work. For this, training is essential today. I wish I had started doing it earlier.
Q. Does your professional activity allow you to go to class or do you do it online?
TO. It is an in-person race, but high-level athletes are lucky that there are a number of institutional programmes and facilities that we can take advantage of. Because I can hardly ever go to class, since the race is held in the mornings and I am normally training.
Q. How do you combine a World Cup with university studies?
TO. The truth is that there is not much work to do now, both in terms of studies and training. We are already in the middle of the championship and the university has just started the course. These days I am making contact with the new teachers to try to do some tutorials, some meetings to talk and see how we approach the dynamics of the subject.
Q. Do your teachers know you and help you balance your work and family life?
TO. If I have to say anything, it is that the teachers are very willing to help us, to adapt. We always find a way to talk or meet online and to propose something that is feasible taking into account my situation. The relationship that is established in many cases is very good, to the point that some teachers, to make things easier for me, tell me that I don’t need to contact them by email and give me their personal number.
“Some teachers follow the latest sports news, many knew me and were fans of indoor football”
Q. Aren’t you surprised when you see your name on the list or when you see you in class for the first time?
TO. I think that they already know the specific cases of the athletes that are there, before having contact with the students. Some of them even follow the current events of the sport; many knew me and were fans of indoor football.
Q. What is your favorite subject?
TO. It is a degree that is closely linked to sport from a business and management perspective. I particularly like those that focus on the entire legislative system in sport, to learn a little about the structures, who has authority over whom, who the federations depend on… It has also been good for me to understand a little about the situation I am in.
Q. Do any of your classmates know you or do they know that you share a class with a professional player?
TO. They know I’m in class because I’m on the list and when there are group emails, my email is there too. When I have to present projects or presentations, the professor tries to make me go in person and it’s true that when I go, I feel a little out of place. Most of them are young kids of 18, 19 years old. But whenever I need it, they help me.
“For a moment I was like, this reminds me of being in high school with my friends messing around”
Q. Any anecdotes from college?
TO. This year I arrived for an exam one day and I normally wait outside the classroom for the teacher. When he arrived he told me to wait, that there was a little problem. I peeked in and saw that the principal was also in the classroom. Apparently some kids had thrown a water balloon out the window and had gotten some girls in the cafeteria wet. For a moment I thought, this reminds me of my time in high school with my friends.
Q. Do you ever study alongside your children while they do their homework?
TO. No, because they are still very young. I think that now Leo, the eldest, will start to have his homework, but in these years when I have had to study I have not been able to do it at home because they are very small, active children and it is difficult to concentrate. I will surely be able to do it with the older one soon, as long as the younger one lets us.
Q. A promise if they win the World Cup?
TO. I’m not one to make that kind of promise, to shave my head or dye my hair. What I would like, if we were champions, is that we could have an outing afterwards, a leisure trip for the whole expedition to live together in a different way.
Q. Is there a dream you have yet to fulfil in futsal?
TO. I would say that being able to play in the Olympics would be amazing because it would also be the first time that futsal would be an Olympic sport and it would be an achievement both personally and collectively for the world of futsal.
Q. A dream in life?
TO. My dream is to be able to continue living off something that I like, that motivates me, that gives me opportunities to improve and grow. If it can be linked to sport, then I hope so, I hope to continue in this business.
