MANILA: Shane Clemente left the Philippines with a dream of becoming a professional footballer. Little did he know that joining his brother in the UAE would catapult his career into playing for a club in Spain.

Clemente, now 21, moved to Dubai one year ago to find better opportunities for training than what was available back home, where the most popular sport has since time immemorial been basketball.

Brought up in Malabon, a city 10 km from the capital Manila, he started to play football on the streets.

“I got into football when I was 8 years old, with my brother who is an avid football fan,” Clemente told Arab News.

Being on the pitch, playing and making new friends through sports has meant everything for him ever since.

“It’s just simply that I’m a passionate person who really got into football,” he said. “I love every single moment of it.”

Last week, that passion was sealed with an offer to play for Majorca-based Club Deportivo Llosetense.

“They’re playing in the third division in the Spanish football league. And there’s a lot of good players here,” he said, right after signing the contract on Thursday evening.

“I had a flashback of all my sacrifices and commitment to football. For sure, this is my stepping stone to play in top leagues.”

His route to Llosetense from Malabon was not easy and consistently featured training to not give up.

“I had a lot of devastating lows, rejections after rejections from clubs, schools and national team selections. But I had that ‘Keep working, your time will come’ mindset,” he said.

“Football is a very demanding game. You need to be physically, mentally and tactically ready, and enjoy the journey, whatever failures and rejections come. Always keep your head up because every day is an opportunity to get better.”

The opportunity emerged in Dubai, where his brother settled to work in 2017.

Clemente was still underage, but he would keep pestering him to find an Emirati club where he could flourish.

“I always told my brother, ‘Can you find me a football club, can you find me opportunities to play football?’” he said. “I’ve heard the UAE is crazy about in football as well. There are a lot of clubs, fans and a lot of (football) academies.”

Last year, he eventually joined his brother, and the facilities he found in Dubai were a game-changer in the young player’s career.

“The opportunity that UAE has given me is to gain a lot of playing time. It means a lot to me because I rarely played 90 minutes in my country,” he said.

“They’ve given me programs that can help me as a player. They gave me proper programs.”

Everything that he experienced and learned throughout the recent months helped Clemente build momentum in his sports career, which has just begun with Llosetense.

“That helped me a lot as a player and as a person,” he said.

“I think I’m now around 70 percent into achieving my dream. That’s my own assessment. It’s still semi-professional, but it can lead to an opportunity to become a pro if I play really well.”