Patricdefender of Lazio, spoke to the club’s official channels, retracing his journey in blue and white: “I am a person who has felt very strong in difficulties. Everything that happened to me, even negative ones, was right to happen. When I arrived I wasn’t ready. I was a child, not only in football, also in life. I am a very sensitive person. Sometimes when we talk about footballers we only refer to what they do on the pitch, but in reality they are people, each with a personality that changes their way of being on the pitch. When playing football there are many aspects to consider. At that moment I wasn’t ready and I think that the aspect that has never caused me to be excluded is that I have always worked, listened and learned. I always went for two thousand, I knew I had the qualities, but also that I had to mature in many aspects. I’ve always believed it!”.
Is there a “perfect match” among these 200?
“I don’t have one in particular, I experience every emotion to the fullest. That’s how I am, so not which one to choose. I like to experience the matches. Then it is normal that in terms of importance, playing the Champions League is the dream of all great players and great clubs. Experiencing a night like the one against Bayern Munich in a full Olympic stadium is special. Then so are all the home games, minus the away ones. I live them all as if they were the last.”
Had he imagined staying this long?
“I already knew Lazio because they are a historic team, then I have always liked Italian football and I knew I could learn a lot. I didn’t think I’d stay for so many years, but I think I couldn’t have been in a better place to grow and mature. Maybe if I had stayed in Spain my career wouldn’t have been so good. Coming to a place where I didn’t speak the language, where I closed myself off with my parents, where I only thought about playing football was part of my growth. I got to experience the Italian mentality, much tougher than in Spain, where they are usually lighter with young people. I think being here has been good for me to grow and become a footballer at certain levels. I’m proud to be here, I feel very comfortable.”
The first real experience was at Villarreal.
“I was born in Murcia, a small town where there are no footballers, and I come from a very humble family. All the comforts of big cities are far away, there you live in the countryside and in a natural way. When the offer from Villarreal arrived I was twelve years old and telling my parents wasn’t easy since they didn’t understand much about football. I was recently talking about it with my mother and she told me that I even threatened them by telling them that I would never forgive them if they didn’t send me. Today I realize the sacrifice they made, it wasn’t easy to send such a young boy, my mother was ill for a year.”
Physically he is not a giant yet he seems to exalt himself in marking the more physical points.
“I always like to outdo myself, play against strong players who are difficult to mark. It’s the beauty of football, that of facing the best, you’re motivated, you want to prove that you can overcome them, to show how much you’re worth to yourself. It’s true that I’m not that tall, I have other characteristics. In fact, I wasn’t born as a central defender. I’m good at carrying the ball at my feet, I’m quick and have good intensity. I compensate for the lack of physicality with other characteristics.”
You were born as a midfielder, do you think your career could have changed?
“I always say that things happen for a reason, I don’t like to complain about what didn’t happen before. If things didn’t go as we hoped, perhaps it’s because they could have been even worse. I am proud of my journey and proud of myself and what I have done. Thinking coldly, however, perhaps discovering the central role could open the doors for me to do bigger things because I feel good there. My path has been difficult. At Barcelona I was a full-back, but they moved me because there were strong players like Luis Alberto and Sergi Roberto in midfield. Playing full back allowed me to get there, otherwise playing in the middle I wouldn’t have found space. Playing full back, so it helped me, it didn’t just slow me down. Then I came to Lazio to be a full-back, but with Inzaghi we started playing five-man and this penalized me, because it took me a year and a half to find my position. I didn’t have the strength to say where I was best, I adapted to the coach’s requests, but I knew I couldn’t do the fifth. One day, however, the coach told me to do the third and I grew up there. Things always happen for a reason.”
He made his Champions League debut in place of Puyol. Memories?
“A night that I will carry with me forever. I knew I could make my debut because Dani Alves was injured and I had been called up for a few games. That evening, then, I was the only one available for that role and we had one more injured person.”
How is your relationship with Messi?
“Messi has always behaved very well with me, as has Mascherano. They were always there to give me some advice, they always treated me well, then it wasn’t a very close relationship. My agent, however, is very close to him. Training with him? Messi is number one, sometimes it doesn’t seem real to you.”
Who is the most difficult attacker to mark?
“I would not know. Sometimes it is more difficult to play against very fast wingers like Coman and Sané in their prime than an attacker. The attackers can score goals or not, they can be annoying, but they have less protagonism in the game. The pure wingers are the ones who are the most annoying, who continually aim, who skip the man, who take dozens of shots in a match. Players like Dembele, Neymar, Messi…”.
Is Guardiola’s Barça the strongest team ever?
“I often talk about it with Pedro. When I arrived in Barcelona, Guardiola also arrived, I experienced an important change firsthand. I saw Guardiola’s entire career and Pedrito’s debut. I remember when he made his debut, it was my first time at the stadium. I was very little and I asked the older ones who he was, they told me he was a Tenerife phenomenon who came from Barcelona B. I was always at the stadium, also because I lived in there. I have never seen such superiority, the opponents in the 60th minute wanted the games to end.”
How would you explain Lazio and Laziality?
“I heard it a lot in the early years. Even if I didn’t play, even if I was criticized, I understood the situation and the Lazio environment got inside me. It’s like a family. In certain moments you get emotional on your own without thinking about it, it means that there is something that has entered you. I will always carry Lazio with me, it is my favorite team. It has something special. Anyone who spends many years here realizes that you can’t do without it. You will remember it forever. The fans and the shirt get inside you. People die to go to the stadium to see Lazio win. These are values that we have always had and that make you love the shirt.”
A player who disappointed him on the pitch?
“In terms of quality in training for the 9 years I’ve been here, there was no one else like Ravel Morrison. The problem is that football is not just about talent. Sometimes it’s not even just the footballer’s fault, but the environment around you. You come to the camp for an hour and a half, the other 22 and a half hours are spent with your family and those around you. For him this was the problem, but in training he had superior quality. With this talent he was at the level of Luis Alberto, perhaps even more in tight spaces. He did incredible things, but the difference is the head, the desire to pedal and this penalized him a lot.”
Someone who was immediately noticeable was a phenomenon?
“Sergej Milinkovic-Savic. When he arrived the first few months he showed a physical and technical superiority. It was difficult to see a player so tall that he expressed this quality with the ball at his feet. If you put the two things together I knew he was a special player for Lazio. He could be seen from afar.”
Is there little talk about depression and mental health?
“Yes, without a doubt. There are many situations but also matches in which I didn’t see the ball. Sometimes I was too good. The fact of not saying that I was sick so as not to disappoint and to make others happy and not me. They were all injured, I had to play and for me not playing was disappointing. I said to myself ‘how can I not play just because I’m sick’. It was too easy to give up. At that moment I wasn’t well, but facing that moment made me who I am. Not facing this fear, doing the easy thing, that is, giving up playing, would not have made me so mature. I remember a match with Sassuolo at home, with Bruges in Belgium, I couldn’t see the ball and I wasn’t well. I didn’t understand why. I stopped the ball and passed it to the closest teammate. I finally got over it all. Mental health is everything. Ever since I was a child I have thought that the important thing is to enjoy life and be happy. When you grow up you realize that life is full of difficulties and when you least expect them they arrive.”
Did anyone know about his rough patch?
“Yes, I mentioned it a little. For example, I had panic attacks on planes when we traveled. Sometimes someone laughed, but I wanted to be strong, so that nothing would happen to me. In the end it was a very serious thing and I always kept it to myself. This was a mistake because you need to ask for help first. The last thing I wanted was to play football. If you don’t feel well you can’t do a job like ours. You must be calm and at peace with yourself. I woke up in the morning without the desire to do anything, I had lost the sense of living. I wondered why I had to go to work. I’ve always been a bit of a hypochondriac. The fact of seeing people dying from Covid on TV and I was alone made me ask a thousand questions and made me go into crisis.”
Do you feel that you would have won the Scudetto without the interruption due to Covid?
“I don’t know if we would have won the championship, but we would have come close until the end. I’m sure. The feelings I had the last time at home against Bologna with 70,000 people in the stadium, we won matches after 20 minutes. I’ve never had the energy I had in my entire career. I was putting everything on the line, for the first time I felt like an important piece, they always won and it was the talk of all of us in Europe. Finding yourself stuck at home shortly afterwards was difficult. I told myself to keep up and I killed myself with workouts at home. But I couldn’t see the way out and I didn’t know how to handle this situation, it was the first time it had happened to me. We would have played it until the end, I’m sure.”
Will he return to Spain at the end of his career?
“Still do not know. I bought a house here, I feel like one of you. I haven’t decided, it’s a few years away. I think you have to stay close to your parents. When they are older I will have to stay with them like they did with me. As long as they are there I will always be at their side, they want to enjoy them as much as possible.”
