Tom Gabarró, a 19-year-old from Cabrera del Mar in Barcelona, is the only Spanish player in the NFL Academy, which has 70 players from 21 countries. He discovered American football by chance during an academic stay in Canada, saying he tried the sport almost by default because he did not know any other sport available to him.
Gabarró reached the academy in Loughborough, England, through Daniel Docal, the Spanish defensive coordinator of its youth prospects team between 2023 and 2026. Docal spotted him at a game between Spain and Great Britain in Zaragoza. Docal, who was an assistant to Mike Tomlin, the Pittsburgh Steelers head coach from 2007 to 2025, a period in which Tomlin won a Super Bowl, invited Gabarró to the academy for a week. After that week, Gabarró said, the academy decided to give him a scholarship.
The NFL Academy is a league project based in Loughborough for players aged 16 to 19, designed to help them move into the U.S. college system. This season, 50 players produced by the institution are competing in college leagues, 30 of them in Division I College, the highest level. The academy also faces U.S. college teams in its regular-season schedule and has traveled to the United States three times this season. Its most recent game, on Oct. 16 against IMG Academy in Florida, ended in a 40-42 loss.
Gabarró began as a receiver, whose job is to score touchdowns and catch passes from quarterbacks, before moving to defense as a defensive back, where his main task is to disrupt opponents' aerial attacks. He said understanding both positions and seeing football from the offensive side has helped him and given him versatility.
At Loughborough he trains as a defensive back and studies a pre-university sports course at Loughborough College focused on anatomy. He described it as a completely different world from his previous club, the Badalona Dracs in Spain. The most striking difference, he said, is the competition: players must take the place of the person ahead of them, who may also be someone they live with, which he called a beautiful form of competition.
The move has also changed his daily life. Loughborough has little sun and an average temperature of 9.9 degrees, far from Spain's Mediterranean climate. Gabarró said he went from living with his parents, who cooked for him, and meeting friends in a Spanish- and Catalan-speaking environment to a place where everyone speaks English and he speaks neither Spanish nor Catalan with anyone.
A Barcelona fan from a sport-loving family, Gabarró played rugby as a child at UE Santboiana, where his father played as a nine and won a Spanish championship. He has also played football, ridden motorcycles and surfed. He admires Tyrann Mathieu, described in the source as a former New Orleans Saints player, and dreams of playing in an NFL setting similar to the games being held in Spain, or better.
He wants to study economics and remain in sport after his playing career, whether as a coach or an administrator. He said he believes he will stay linked to American football for the rest of his life. The Cincinnati Bengals and Atlanta Falcons are due to play the second NFL game in Spain at the Bernabéu in a week, after the Miami Dolphins beat the Washington Commanders 16-13 there last year. Gabarró dreams of one day reaching a similar stage, or a bigger one, with an NFL franchise.
Sources: El País Deportes.