Independiente del Valle’s formula for success: from Ecuador it expands to Colombia

Valley Independentthe Ecuadorian club that in just four seasons, from 2019 to 2023, won two editions of the South American Cup and a South American Cup Winners’ Cup, has begun to export its successful model, which years ago seemed to be tied to the soccer of Argentina and Brazil.

Colombia, and specifically the Atlético Huila club, represents the continued expansion of the owner of Independiente, businessman Michel Deller, who some time ago had closed another operation in Spain with Numancia.

Since Deller took control of the Valle de los Chillos club in 2007, his progression has been meteoric, winning the Sudamericana in 2019 and 2022 and the Recopa Sudamericana in 2023, in addition to reaching the Copa Libertadores final in 2016, and win an Ecuadorian league (2021), an Ecuador Cup (2022) and a U20 Copa Libertadores (2020).

Behind these conquests there is a management focused on replicating the great European clubs, especially in their academy, with modern facilities and a defined style of play from the lower divisions to the first team.

Thanks to a large group of talent scouts, he has managed to bring together the majority of young Ecuadorian talents who ended up standing out in the first team, making the leap to Europe and consolidating themselves as figures in the Ecuadorian team.

Standing out in this group are defender Piero Hincapié, now at Bayer Leverkusen; and the midfielder Moisés Caicedo, who plays for English Brighton.

The most recent discovery is the midfielder Kendry Páez, linked to Chelsea after having made his debut in the first division of Ecuador and having established himself as a figure of the Tri.

Both Hincapié, Caicedo and Páez were forged at the Independiente del Valle High Performance Center, to which Deller incorporated European professionals, especially Spanish coaches.

This year the Spanish Andoni Bombín is in charge of the academy, who for years was in charge of the training methodology of Lezama, the Athletic Club de Bilbao youth academy.

At the High Performance Center, in addition to football preparation, children and young people are fed, receive lodging and guidance in their primary and secondary studies.

Now that experience and the work method will be replicated in a new center with the same characteristics, inaugurated a few days ago in Esmeraldas, the largest hotbed of sports talent in Ecuador and the birthplace of most of the players of the senior team.

The results have been superlative, not only in the sporting field, but also in the economic sphere, with deals that were unthinkable until a few years ago in Ecuadorian soccer, such as that of Páez, whose move to Chelsea is estimated to have yielded 20 million dollars.

Caicedo was transferred to Brighton for about 7 million dollars, but Independiente del Valle reserved 20% of a future sale of the player.

While the parents of the children defend the management carried out by the Independiente headhunters, other voices criticize their recruitment methods, especially from the clubs that suffer from the flight of their young figures.

The president of El Nacional, Lucía Vallecilla, and the president of Barcelona, ​​Carlos Alejandro Alfaro Moreno, accused Independiente del Valle of taking their players without contacting them beforehand, barely addressing their parents.

Santiago Morales, director of Independiente del Valle, said he was surprised by the statements by the president of Barcelona.

On the contrary, he asserted that “There are many boys who want to reach Independiente”.

Jessica Andrade, mother of Kendry Páez, expressed that other clubs in the country do not dare to bet on the talent of young people.

Páez began his career at the Huancavilca soccer school in Guayaquil, continued at the Barcelona academy and then at Patria, a second division club from Guayaquil, from where Independiente’s scouts took him to their academy at the age of 11.

Independiente has also been criticized for presenting in its first team line-ups made up mostly of foreigners, but under this competition players like Caicedo and Páez have earned a place in the starting eleven, and have reached a cachet that only a few years ago was I saw in Argentina and Brazil.

Source: EFE