Valbuena offered instant stardom for Tampa Catholic
TAMPA, Fla. (BVM) — Marcello Valbuena doesn’t have a “started from the bottom” story or a tale of adversity; he’s just always been a baller. Up until his senior year, he never bothered himself with the idea of high school soccer because he played for the Clearwater Chargers, a club team affiliated with MLS Next.
With some of the top coaches and facilities that prep soccer has to offer, the 6-foot-1 center back was content. Valbuena even had his three best friends playing for the same club team. But when those friends left the club to play for their high school, Tampa Catholic, things changed. He held out until his senior year when he finally gave in to his friends attempts to get him to join the Crusaders.
Valbuena should be thanking those friends for their persistence in recruiting him, and they should be returning the favor. In his first and only year of high school soccer, Valbuena was moved to striker, a position unfamiliar to him, but it worked wonders. The soccer phenom scored 36 goals in that single season, earning himself the Gatorade Florida Boys Soccer Player of the Year award.
“I naturally played center back my whole life,” Valbuena said. “When I played high school this first year, the coach put me as a striker and I used what I knew from center back. I held up the ball and just bounced it and kept moving and it worked out.”
“Worked out” was an understatement as the team finished with a 25-2 overall record, winning the Class 3A state championship. While the transition appears seamless on paper, Valbuena admitted to some difficulties moving over to striker. However, those same friends who led him down this successful path played as equal a part in his knowledge of the striker position.
“Some moments were harder because I’ve never played striker,” Valbuena said. “But it was good because my friends were helping me in knowing the runs and the reads to make.”
Just four or five games into the season, Valbuena became a targeted man. Teams were game planning specifically for him, something they hadn’t prepared for in the past. He threw a wrench into nearly every team’s scheme, yet they still couldn’t stop him.
“The other players and coaches would say my name and on the corners they’d be like, ‘mark Marcello!’ and I’d just be like, ‘oh my gosh.’”
So after coming in and tearing up the prep soccer scene in the Tampa area, college will just be more of the same. Valbuena is committed to the University of Tampa, an NCAA Division II school. Though other offers may have been on the table, the superior goal-scorer is a homebody and wanted to remain nearby.
In the 2020-21 season, the Spartans finished 3-3-1, scoring just 12 goals on 7.5 attempts per game. Valbuena will certainly help to elevate those numbers when he’s inserted into the lineup.
“I knew some of the coaches there and I did camps as a kid at UT so it all made sense,” Valbuena said. “It just feels like a good fit for me.”
The Florida Dairy Farmers Mr. Soccer winner has a well-established career already behind him, and a lot of untapped talent still ahead of him. If he continues ascending along the South Florida soccer ranks, perhaps one day he’ll be able to join the likes of Brian Fekete (Orlando City, USL), Dominic Cutrofello (VSI Tampa Bay, USL), Pascal Millien (Sligo FC, Premier Division I – Ireland Champions League 2013-14) and Ryan Thompson (Jamaican National Team), all of whom are former UT stars.
