César Valencia, the man who taught Miguel Borja the bicycle kick he scored against Chivas

Some bicycle kicks are learned on the beach, fooling around with friends, and some are learned lying flat on your back, with someone tossing you the ball over and over until your body understands the movement. Miguel Borja's against Chivas this past Saturday, in the middle of the Clásico Nacional, belongs to the second category. And the man who taught it to him has a name: César Valencia.

To understand that bicycle kick, you have to travel far from Estadio Akron, all the way to Tierralta, Córdoba, in northern Colombia. A town located just 20 minutes from Santa Fe de Ralito, where the country's main paramilitary encampment once stood. That's where Borja is from. And it was soccer, precisely, that he held onto to get away from that environment.

That leap had a bridge: Fútbol Paz, an amateur club in Cali where the forward took his first formal steps in the sport. It was there, amid drills designed to add more variety to his finishing, that a 17-year-old learned how to execute bicycle kicks.

A player who used to show up on a bike

César Valencia, a board member at the club, met Borja in 2010 and was struck by his personality, his physical power, and above all, his ability to place the ball exactly where he intended. The problem was something else: the forward was splitting his time between soccer and a job at a hardware store, and on top of that, he lived far from where the team trained.

He lived very far from where we trained and he'd come on a bicycle. I'm not sure how long it took him, but I think it must have been an hour and a half, two hours. And after training was over, he'd ride back, but at midday he worked at a hardware store near where we trained. So obviously, his performance under those conditions wasn't going to be optimal, so we decided to talk to him and tell him, come on, just focus on soccerCésar Valencia

Valencia got him out of that situation and brought him to the residential home run by Club Deportivo Fútbol Paz, and according to him, that's when he began opening up "other possibilities in life" for Borja. Over the two years Borja spent under his guidance, he went through a very specific progression to master the bicycle kick: first lying on his back, repeating the motion on its own; then in a crouch, working on the fall with his arms back; and finally standing up, executing the full movement, landing included.

The day after the brace against Chivas, bicycle kick included, Valencia and Borja spoke on the phone. The board member reminded him where that move came from, and even had his son, now the club's president, confirm it directly with the forward.

When I tell this story, nobody believes me. So I was there with my son, who's now the club president, and I told him, hey, take advantage that Miguel's right there, he'll talk to you, ask him if it's true or not. And sure enough, Miguel told him yes, that I was the one who taught him how to do bicycle kicksCésar Valencia

A message for the fans

Wearing América's jersey, Borja already has three goals in 36 minutes of action: one against Cruz Azul and the brace against Chivas. Numbers that, for Valencia, are no coincidence but rather a pattern that goes back a long way.

Tell América de México's fans to trust in Miguel, he's been a goalscorer everywhere he's gone. And I think he's going to keep adding to that. He's one of those players who gives teams exactly what they need these days, goals. There they are, the goals. Miguel is goalsCésar Valencia

Borja's story isn't unique at Fútbol Paz. Julián Quiñones followed a similar path: he also came from a marginalized area of Colombia, was recruited by Valencia, and developed there before making the jump to professional soccer, in his case to Tigres, through a partnership signed with the Mexican club. Borja, for his part, was at Fútbol Paz between 2010 and 2012 before making his professional debut with Deportivo Cúcuta.