"The best footballers come from humble backgrounds," says Marcos Caicedo, Moises's brother. "Moises is a prime example of this." It's not a slogan — it's the whole blueprint behind Nino Moi 23, the academy network that now spans 38 locations across Ecuador, including the Galapagos Islands.
Over 1,500 children aged five to sixteen are currently training across those sites. One of them sits in Guamani, a neighbourhood in southern Quito that the Ecuadorean government itself has flagged as a place where criminal gangs actively recruit children — poverty, lack of education and geography all working against families trying to keep their kids safe. Football, here, isn't just a sport. It's an exit route.
From a dirt pitch in Santo Domingo to Chelsea and the World Cup
Caicedo knows that road personally. He grew up on a dirt pitch in a humble part of Santo Domingo, faced real financial hardship, and struggled to access proper academy training as a kid. That backstory isn't incidental to Nino Moi 23 — it's the reason it exists.
"Moises's wish is for the children to have the opportunity to play football, to see sport as a profession, a way of life for them and their families," said Galo Rodriguez, the academies' sporting director. The ambition goes further than grassroots welfare, too. Caicedo wants to build his own football team, using the academies as a pipeline for players to break through at national and international level.
At 24, he's about to play in his second World Cup — which gives all of this immediate context for those 1,500 kids watching him.
Ecuador's World Cup schedule and what it means for the academies' visibility
Ecuador face Ivory Coast in Group E on June 14 in Philadelphia, then Curacao in Kansas City on June 20, and Germany in New Jersey on June 25. That's three matches on the biggest stage, with Caicedo likely anchoring the midfield throughout. Every good performance amplifies the Nino Moi 23 brand without a single marketing budget being spent.
For Ecuador's World Cup odds, Caicedo is central to everything — his form, his fitness, his ability to control tempo against a Germany side that will demand answers. But behind those tournament calculations, there are 1,500 kids in places like Guamani who don't care about the odds. They just want to be next.
"All the kids dream of being on a professional team, then they dream of going abroad and becoming an international role model and obviously, with a World Cup, that's the icing on the cake," Rodriguez said. "Hopefully, many more will come out of here."
