The dream of interning for a professional soccer team!
Hey everyone, my name is Lyla Mankoff. I am from a small beach town in California and grew up playing and watching soccer. This summer all of my childhood dreams came true as I got the opportunity to be a marketing intern for the professional Spanish soccer club Villarreal CF. As an avid watcher of Spanish soccer, I never would have thought that I would get such an opportunity. I grew up a LaLiga fan, amazed at how Messi could control the ball so well and admiring the drive that all the players in LaLiga had in each and every game. My 10-year-old self dreamed of the day I would be able to just visit a stadium that all of the iconic players had set foot in. It’s safe to say throughout my entire experience at Villarreal CF I have been “fangirling”.
As most know, finding your first internship is extremely stressful and is filled with a lot of rejection. After applying to over 20 internship programs in my local state, I decided to get creative and discovered InternAbroadHQ. Their program in Valencia, Spain caught my eye as I am a fluent Spanish speaker and minoring in Spanish at my university. When I decided to apply, I thought it was a long shot that I would get the internship due to all the previous rejection I had received, however to my luck I was accepted within hours. I could not believe I would be living in Europe for the summer! Little did I know that I would be living such an amazing, life-changing experience.
The moment I stepped onto the train on my first day heading to my internship at Villarreal CF I thought I was dreaming. I was so nervous and anxious, but above all excited to finally see what the “behind the scenes” would look like at a professional soccer club. Beside the excitement, I was preparing myself to be ready to be doing the boring work that the actual employees did not have time to do, however that was not the case.
As I stepped into the Villarreal CF international office I was greeted with so many “Hola’s!” and handshakes, I felt like I was one of the First Division players. From the moment I began my internship I felt so welcomed and as if I was a part of the Groguet family.
When most people think of soccer, they mainly think of the First Division players, the coaches, and maybe the stadiums each club has, but never the people behind the scenes that work so hard to make the club feel like a family. After being an intern for Villarreal CF for a month, I can say that the sense of community you feel working there is unlike anything you will experience at any other professional club. My outstanding supervisor Lucy Groffe made us interns feel as at home and appreciated as possible. She helped us to get a photo with a First Division player, and would introduce us to all of her colleagues we passed in the hallways. Never once did I feel as if I was doing brainless work that would never even be looked at.
The one thing that Villarreal CF has taught me is that community is everything. Villarreal CF does an amazing job at creating such a welcoming community for their local supporters, their supporters and teams abroad, and most importantly their employees. The extensive outreach programs that they have around the world all try to get people to experience the Villarreal way of soccer, which is something that most professional clubs do not have.
The growth and learning experiences I have had during my time at Villarreal CF is something I will carry with me for the rest of my life. Interning here has opened my eyes to the sports business world and convinced me that I need to be a part of it in the future.
