Álvaro Medrán: “Hopefully Luka Modric will last us many more years…”

Álvaro Medrán (Dos Torres, Córdoba, 1994) is the latest to join the small Spanish colony in the Saudi Arabian league. The former white youth squad, who made his debut with Ancelotti’s first-team Madrid and scored against Ludogorets in the Champions League, has just traded the cold of Chicago for the Arabian desert. Taking advantage of the fact that his new team, Al-Taawoun, visits Riyadh, he meets with AS to talk about this adventure and how he sees his former team hours before the final.

He left Spain to become the Americas and now we see him in the Middle East…

Soccer players always live with a half-packed suitcase… I’ve wanted to leave the Chicago Fire for a long time. And the proposal was good in all aspects, also to try another football and another culture. Qatar, Emirates… for me the Saudi is the best league in the area. My team treats the ball very well and in general the teams play well. It is a league that is growing and what happens to it is that it does not have the marketing of the MLS, for example. But in quality the Saudi is superior, totally.

What happened in Chicago to end up so disenchanted?

I went with the idea of ​​playing, but the team has to accompany you. And if he doesn’t win… The football atmosphere was cold, like the city. We were the fifth sport in Chicago and we played in a stadium with 70,000 spectators but only 5,000 went. We were not a competitive team and I went home frustrated. Al-Taawoun, on the other hand, played in the Cup final last year and now we are fighting to enter the Asian Champions League. I liked the change.

Has such a sudden change of cultures impacted you?

Before I arrived, I didn’t have many expectations of the city, Buraidah, because it’s not Riyadh or Jeddah, but the city is very good and the food is incredible… That’s right, people drive terrible, they don’t respect the right-of-way, they the lines jump… you have to go with seven eyes! (laughs).

Let’s go back a bit. Do you have the feeling that, for one reason or another, you didn’t finish having your big moment in the Spanish League?

Looking at my history, I could have done better or worse, but luck also has to accompany you, and in addition to the fact that there have been injuries in each team that I have been in every year, I had two or three coaches. That’s how complicated it is.

Seven years later, what do you remember from those months in the Madrid first team?

Until that year everything was going well at Madrid but I ended up with a fibula injury that was a bitch… Ancelotti gave me confidence and Fernando Hierro, who was his second, was very much with me. Living every day with that wardrobe is quite an apprenticeship.

You are a midfielder and you saw them up close. How is it possible that Modric and Kroos seem better footballers every year?

They have always had talent but then there is that maximum professionalism, that care for every detail… They are not valued enough. That Modric, at his age, be one of the best if not the best in Madrid. Hopefully it will last us many more years… because it is a pleasure to see it.

I imagine him being a sponge to absorb everything he did…

They teach you if you want to learn and I wanted to. Sometimes we would have conversations and he would explain things to me. I who have big ears (laughs) had them open for everything I could learn from him and Toni.

What does this Madrid have that never stops competing, is the leader in the League and is in the final of this Super Cup?

The greats of Europe are one step ahead, physically, of the Spanish League. Even so, Madrid has that midfield… Benzema, the signing of Alaba has helped them and the appearance of Vinicius, who is breaking out as a star. I see you well.

Will you be able to see the final even if it is on television?

I’ll give it a try, but I just moved in yesterday, I’ve only been here so little time that I don’t have a wifi at home! (laughs).