By Jerome Lagunzad
Promising footballer AJ Boy Victoriano and budding journalist Matteo de Venecia will have an experience to remember as they fly to Russia next week for the 6th Gazprom Football for Friendship International Program in Moscow.
Victoriano, selected in the role of a midfielder, will be a part of the 32 International Teams of Friendship that will play against each other in the Gazprom Football for Friendship International Championship which will feature kids from over 210 countries around the world.
The young footballer from Parañaque City will join the “Komodo Dragon” team and will undergo a three-day training camp in Moscow to acclimatize himself on the playing conditions and get ample practice with his team before the start of the championship.
Victoriano, who started playing football at the age of eight, has seen action in local football tourneys and even played a pivotal role in leading Team Socceroo FC to success in the the Laguna Carmeltown Championship and the Ambassador Camp.
A die-hard Barcelona FC fan, Victoriano dreams to play in a professional league someday like his idols, Argentine icon Lionel Messi and Brazilian star Neymar, two of the most popular footballers in the world right now.
Accompanying Victoriano is De Venecia, his Team Socceroo FC teammate who will act as a young journalist and cover all the local and global activities of the program as part of the International Children’s Press Center.
A sports enthusiast who hails from Manila, De Venecia belongs to a sports loving family and has started playing football when he was four years old.
