MADRID 5 Dic. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Spanish forward Cristina Martín-Prieto celebrates her signing this past summer for Portuguese side Benfica, her first experience outside of Spanish football that has led her to play in a league that “in a ‘few’ years will be talked about and will be great.”
“I’m very good, I have found a club and some very good teammates, the truth is that from the beginning they have made my stay very welcoming. The truth is that I am delighted to have decided and to have gone there,” confessed Cristina Martín-Prieto told Europa Press in an interview during the last concentration of the Spanish team.
The Andalusian celebrated the good bet of the Portuguese Federation to grow the league, focusing “a lot on Spain to try to improve.” “It’s not professional, but for example they have VAR and they play on natural grass. They are taking steps and I think that in the short term it will be better,” he said.
“They have us close, Spain is the world champion and then you notice. I can’t say that the league is as competitive as the Spanish one, but in a ‘few’ years it will be talked about and it will be big,” warned the international.
However, despite his good start with Benfica, the team suffered the setback of being left out of the group stage, eliminated by the Swedish Hammarby and after a previous European campaign where the Lisbon team was able to draw with FC Barcelona and to reach the quarterfinals.
“For me it was new because this competition was new and I was very excited, but I haven’t noticed it as much as those who were there last year because the objective was to either repeat the same thing or pass. For me it was new and I have been more enjoying the process,” Martín-Prieto warned.
The forward stressed that her teammates did “suffer it a little more.” “I know that in the club and in the teammates it has been difficult, and the next two or three days the training sessions looked sad, but I have not been able to feel what certain teammates have felt because for me I had never even done one round,” he said.