What It's Like to Train at the Spanish FA: An Insider's Guide

If there is one experience that consistently gets rated as the highlight of our tours, it is training at the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) headquarters. Here is what your group can expect.

The RFEF headquarters is located in Las Rozas, just outside Madrid. This is where the Spanish national team, men's, women's, and youth, prepares for major tournaments. The same pitches where Spain prepared for their World Cup and European Championship victories. The complex features multiple full-size professional pitches that are immaculately maintained with natural and artificial surfaces, indoor training facilities for tactical sessions and bad weather days, changing rooms and medical areas at professional grade used by the national team, dining facilities where your group can eat where the national team eats, and conference rooms for team talks, video analysis, and welcome meetings. The moment your players walk through the gates and see the Spanish FA crest, the RFEF flags, and the pristine pitches, you can see it in their faces. They know this is special.

A typical training day at the RFEF on our tours starts with a morning session of two hours including a welcome and facility tour, warm-up and technical drills led by licensed coaches, position-specific work with goalkeepers separate, and small-sided games with tactical focus. Then lunch at the RFEF where your group eats at the federation's dining area. This is a highlight in itself. The food is excellent, and the experience of having lunch like a national team player is something kids talk about for years. The afternoon session of two hours covers a tactical session building on the morning's work, match simulation or full-sided game, cool down and certificates.

The sessions are delivered by Spanish FA-licensed coaches who regularly work with youth development programs. They are professionals, structured, demanding, but encouraging. They adapt sessions to your group's level, whether you are a competitive U15 academy or a veterans football tour on a social trip. One thing I always hear from coaches who travel with their teams is that they learned as much as their players did. The Spanish coaching methodology, their emphasis on positional play, rondos, and decision-making speed, is world-renowned for a reason.

For some groups, we can arrange accommodation at the RFEF complex itself. Your players literally live where the national team lives during camp. They sleep in the same rooms, eat in the same dining hall, and train on the same pitches. This option is not always available as it depends on the national team's schedule, but when it is, it is an extraordinary experience. Imagine your players going to sleep knowing that the room they are in was used by the Spanish squad preparing for the Euros.

The Spanish FA stands out for three reasons. The history, because this is where World Cup winners prepared and that is not marketing but literally true and your players feel it. The quality, because everything from the pitches to the changing rooms to the food is at the highest professional level. And the respect, because the RFEF staff treat visiting groups with genuine warmth and they understand that for your players this might be a once-in-a-lifetime experience and they make it count. The Spanish FA is located near Madrid, so it fits naturally into tours that include the capital. We typically schedule RFEF training sessions at the start of the tour as it sets the tone for everything that follows.