COACH AL

My name is Álvaro, although most players and families now know me as Coach Al.

I created Primal Soccer to help young players prepare according to the standards found in elite environments—not only on the field, but also through strength training, nutrition, recovery, habits, and mindset.

That approach did not come from a single coaching course or one club’s methodology. It grew out of a lifetime spent experiencing soccer from very different perspectives.

Before the cones

For as long as I can remember, there has been a ball nearby.

I started playing with my older brother in our living room. I remember those games fondly. My mother probably remembers them differently.

At school, recess was also for playing soccer.

On weekends, we played in the town square, close to the local police station. More than once, we had to run from the police because they wanted to confiscate our ball—or from someone at the nearby bar who wanted to steal it.

We probably did more running away from them than we did during the actual games.

Vacations meant—you guessed it—playing in the morning at the public sports complex and returning to the square at night.

That square was our Maracanã.

The ball even came with me to celebrations. I would eat as quickly as possible, then head outside with my brother and any other children we could recruit to build an improvised field.

There were no referees. The ground was uneven. The goals were improvised with backpacks, sweatshirts, stones, or bottles. We rarely saw a crossbar—it existed in our imagination, roughly two hand spans above the goalkeeper’s reach. The ball was rarely the right size, and the teams were almost never fair.

We simply played, adapted, solved problems, and enjoyed ourselves. That environment taught me something I still defend today: soccer must leave room for instinct.

Those early games also shaped how I see the sport today. Without realizing it, I was learning to read situations, make decisions on the fly, and adapt to whatever the game demanded.

Looking back, I understand that those moments were just as important as any structured training I later experienced. They helped me develop a natural feel for the game—something that doesn’t come from instructions alone, but from being fully immersed in play.

That perspective has stayed with me ever since.

Seeing the game from both sides

Eventually, soccer became more organized, and I joined my school’s futsal team.

That was when I made an important decision: I wanted to become a goalkeeper.

I went from chasing the ball to stopping it. Later, I progressed from futsal to seven-a-side and then eleven-a-side soccer.

Playing in goal forced me to see the entire field, anticipate what might happen next, and pay attention to details—because details matter a lot in soccer—that other players could easily miss. Years later, those lessons became even more valuable when I returned to playing as a field player.

Having experienced soccer both in goal and outfield allowed me to understand the game from different angles. That is one reason I believe young players should not be confined too early to a single position. Every role teaches them something different.

Losing soccer—and finding it again

During high school, two things pulled me away from the game.

The first was my schedule. Classes finished late in the afternoon, practice began shortly after I arrived home, and homework had to fit somewhere between training, dinner, and sleep.

The second was far more serious.

At 15, I was involved in a motorcycle accident and nearly lost my right leg. At that age, my greatest fear was not the surgery itself. It was the possibility that I might never play soccer again.

I eventually spent an entire year away from the field.

The following year, I moved to Bridgman, Michigan, to complete my senior year of high school. There, thousands of miles from home, I had my first experience with American soccer—and rediscovered the game I thought I had lost.

The team I joined was already established and highly competitive. Being the new player from Spain did not earn me a place in the lineup—or any guaranteed minutes. I had to adapt, compete, and prove that I could help the team.

I eventually earned a role at center back, and we reached the state finals.

That season taught me that moving abroad can create opportunities, but it guarantees nothing. Players must still earn the trust of their coaches, the respect of their teammates, and their place on the field.

It also gave me something that would become increasingly important years later: a personal understanding of American players, their families, and what it means for young people to leave home and develop in another country.

From the classroom to the field

After returning to Spain, I studied History and continued playing in local leagues with friends.

Once I finished university, I began working as a History teacher.

The classroom confirmed my vocation for teaching and my ability to connect with young people. But it also showed me that I did not want to spend my life between four walls trying to awaken interest in a subject that many students saw as distant from their own lives.

I wanted the freedom of the soccer field.

I wanted to teach something the young people in front of me were already hungry to learn.

Leaving the classroom did not mean abandoning teaching. It meant choosing a different classroom.

My interest in performance did not begin as an abstract academic pursuit, either.

I started strength training after seeing what a sedentary period had done to my own body. I changed the way I ate when I understood that I could not put just anything into my body and still expect it to perform.

Those experiences pushed me to study training and nutrition more deeply.

I became increasingly focused on injury prevention when I understood that availability is the foundation of development: players who cannot train consistently cannot improve consistently.

And habits and mindset became impossible to ignore after watching promising players lose their way because they lacked the judgment and routines needed to support their talent.

I gradually understood that performance cannot be separated into isolated pieces.

Players do not leave poor sleep at home when practice begins. They are still affected by their nutrition, confidence, family environment, stress, and daily habits when they step onto the field.

Players are complete systems. Their development must reflect that.

Learning from elite environments

Leaving the classroom for the field took me farther than I expected.

Soccer has since taken me into international programs and development experiences connected to clubs such as Real Madrid Foundation, Valencia CF, SL Benfica, Fiorentina, and Arsenal. It has also given me the opportunity to visit academies across Europe and study how different environments approach player development.

The names matter because they reflect the level of soccer I have been able to experience from close range.

But the badge itself has never been the lesson.

Each environment has its own culture, priorities, demands, and methodology. Some ideas reinforced what I already believed. Others made me question what I saw.

Experiencing elite soccer up close taught me something important: prestige is not proof, and copying a famous club’s methodology is not the same as understanding player development.

That distinction matters.

Primal Soccer was not created to copy a famous badge. It was created to identify what genuinely helps players develop, combine it with evidence and practical experience, and adapt it to the individuals in front of us.

The objective is not to promise anyone a professional contract. No honest coach can do that.

The objective is to give young players access to the kind of physical preparation, nutrition, habits, mindset, and soccer development usually associated with elite environments—so they are better prepared for whatever level comes next.

Why Primal Soccer exists

Primal Soccer is the result of every version of the game I have experienced:

The child playing in a living room.

The street player solving problems without cones.

The goalkeeper watching everything from behind the team.

The teenager earning his place on an American team.

The player who nearly lost the ability to play.

The teacher who exchanged four walls for a soccer field.

The coach and nutritionist searching for a more complete way to develop players.

And now, the father.

Becoming a father has added another perspective. I understand more clearly what it means for families to trust someone with part of their children’s development—and how much responsibility that trust carries.

Primal Soccer exists to provide young players with the guidance, tools, and environment I would have wanted growing up.

Because development is not about producing identical players.

It is about helping players understand the game, take responsibility for their preparation, and discover how far their abilities can truly take them.