Shot Parkland student visits FC Barcelona for Champions League game

March 13 (UPI) -- Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting survivor Anthony Borges visited Spain Wednesday by request of FC Barcelona for a Champions League match vs. Lyon.

He arrived in the city Tuesday.

Borges, 15, was shot five times during the Feb. 14, 2018, incident, which killed 17 people at the Parkland, Fla., school. He was shot while helping save the lives of 20 students. Borges threw his body in front of a classroom door to shield students from bullets. He was a freshman at the time.

"When he shot me, here on my left leg, I fell. But then I got up little by little, kept crawling and he kept shooting at me while I was closing the door," Borges told Telemundo in April 2018.

Barcelona heard about Borges from journalist Santiago Segurola and made contact with his family to offer help. The La Liga club kept in contact and invited him to Wednesday's game at Camp Nou in Barcelona.

Borges got to meet Barcelona's star players and received an autographed jersey from the team. He also watched a training session. Barcelona posted a Twitter thread telling Borges' story and praising his heroic actions.

Confessed Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz is being held on charges of 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder. If convicted, he faces the death penalty. Cruz's defense team offered a guilty plea in exchange for life in prison without the possibility of parole, but only if the death penalty is taken off of the table. Prosecutors rejected the plea, likely resulting in a long trial.

Borges has been a student at the Barca Academy in Lauderhill, Fla., since 2016.