Player Profile: Marwin Angeles Maru's gearing up to stamp his authority on a big 2021.

Recently taking on more of a leadership role, co-captain Marwin Janver Angeles is the man in charge of Kaya’s deep midfield. On defense, he serves as the team’s main disruptor, breaking up opponents’ possessions before danger can develop. In attack, he’s relied upon for his ability to set the tempo and control the ball in tight spaces,  often making it look easy while doing so.

Marwin—and his twin brother Marvin—are full-blood Filipinos who were born and raised in Venice, Italy. He had a couple of early stints in the Italian youth circuit, suiting up for Venezia FC, Moglaino Veneto FC, and Mestre FC. Prior to their senior year studying Electronic Engineering at the Istituto Livio Sanudo, the twins successfully tried out for the Philippine National Team, and went on to play professionally in the Philippines for Global FC, Ceres FC, and finally Kaya FC in 2017.

That was also the year Marwin scored the club’s first ever goal in the newly formed Philippines Football League. Here are some other things you may not have known about Kaya’s #8:

• His favorite movies are Seven Pounds, starring Will Smith, and Catch Me if You Can with Leonardo DiCaprio.
• His favorite TV shows are criminally-inclined cult classics: Breaking Bad and Peaky Blinders.
• His favorite song is a favorite at weddings: I’m Yours by Jason Mraz
• His favorite cheat day meal is a three-way tie between: Burgers, Pizza (of course), and French Fries.
• His favorite junk food is Pringles.
• His celebrity crush: Megan Fox, Megan Young, and Liza Soberano. (We only asked for one. But okay)
• His favorite footballers growing up: Italian legend Alessandro Del Piero, and French wizard and current Real Madrid manager, Zinedine Zidane.
• If he could have superpowers: Ability to see the future, in order to accurately manage looming mistakes.
• And if he wasn’t a footballer, he’d be: A Businessman.

Both sides of the ball go through Angeles, his job being to facilitate clean transitions from defense to offense and vice versa. Linking play and holding it together in the middle of the pitch, the central midfielder is invaluable to the club’s ambitions in 2021.