ACES Youth Soccer Academy graduate Kundai Mukweva has been playing football in Spain for three years now and still believes he will play giants Atletico Madrid one day.
Mukweva is one of several exciting talents that moved to Spain from the country’s top academy about three years ago alongside Warriors goalkeeper Martin Mapisa, Abubakar Moffat and Micholas Guyo.
The 22-year-old midfielder is currently in the books of Club Deportivo Madridejos which is based in Madridejos, Castile-La Mancha, Spain.
CD Madridejos play in the Autonomica league which is the sixth level of competition of the Spanish football league system and consists of a group of 18 teams.
Mukweva has played for Malaga City before and he speaks about his ambitions as a footballer.
“My dream as a footballer is simple and straightforward. I want to play in Laliga and to play for Atletico Madrid. This is the dream that pushes me to keep working as a young footballer and I believe anything can happen. I also dream of playing for Manchester City in England,” he told The Sports Hub from his Madridejos base.
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Madridejos is only 106 km from Madrid where Spanish football giants Atletico Madrid and Real Madrid are based.
It is probably the reason why Mukweva dares to dream about playing for Atletico.
After three years in Spain where he has also featured for FC Malaga City Academy and even captained one of the teams, Mukweva reflects on his stay in the European country to date.
“I feel I have grown as a football player and the exposure here has been massive. I have played against professional teams a lot of times and I realised that there’s no difference in football. It's all about details.
“I have played in a good and more competitive league. When I got here I was playing for the senior team and I was 19 years old and we went to play offs but we lost in the final. My second year I was the captain on my team and my third year we got promoted because we were number one in the league. We won the league before the season finished. I played all the games so it was a great feeling.
“My target this season is to win the league and help the team get promoted so that I can have a lot of opportunities to go to a bigger teams,” he said.
Currently Madridejos are seventh in the Autonomicas league table with nine points from the five matches played so far and have a date with Cazalegas away from home this evening.
Mukweva grew up in Dzivarasekwa 3 where he attended Gombo and Nhamburiko for his primary education before moving to Marlborough High School.
But it was in primary school that his football journey began.
“When I started playing football seriously I think it was primary school when I was in Grade 5. At that age I was already playing for seniors at my school and that time I was playing for the team called Arsenal then I went for trials at Aces Academy. I played in academy for like 5 months and I did not have money for the bus fare to continue so I decided to play in Dz Academy for like 2 or 3 years. Aces called me back in 2015 and I played there until 2018 then straight to Spain when I was 19,” he said.