Diego Costa gives back to school

Posted Tuesday, June 17, 2014 by Marca.com

Diego Costa has gone full circle since the days when the Spain international was a student at the Bola de Ouro (Golden Ball) Football School.

The training facilities have significantly improved since Costa started giving them his financial backing and he is now the role model that 230 kids aspire to emulate in the game. They now know that it's possible: that one of their own has already done it.

On one of the roads leading out of Lagarto some two kilometres outside of the village, a dirt road forks off to the right. You almost immediately arrive at the school, flanked by the inevitable posters of Diego.
Inside are the facilities that act as an office and storage for kits and boots. A little further on are the pitches, which are always in use. This is Brazil. We should not forget that.

However, every single one of those kids is given one condition: they must stay in school. Costa himself is committed to this, fully aware that enrolment has soared since his playing career has done the same.

Therefore the school is really two schools: football and academic. In terms of the former, the centre-forward is omnipresent: photos with his first teams, photos with Atlético, photos with Spain... and photos with Brazil, from the two friendlies that Scolari called him up for.