The interview to Andres Iniesta, author of the most important goal in the history of Spanish football, is not made by the journalist but by ten significant personalities from different fields who ten years ago vibrated as if they were him. The hero's closeness is obvious: almost all the interviewers tell him about you. La Vanguardia leads you to Iniesta the questions. The first, from the Prime Minister.
COORDINATION: JOAN JOSEP PALLÀS
PEDRO SÁNCHEZ
President of the goverment
Andrés, 10 years ago we won our first World Cup. We also did it in a very complicated economic context. Your feat was an injection of morale for the country. The emotion that we shared that July 11 at minute 116 is unforgettable …
I would like to know what was the most difficult time you lived in South Africa and what was the secret to successfully overcome it.
The most delicate moment, without a doubt, was the match against Switzerland. We started the World Cup with great expectations and great enthusiasm to make a great World Cup and it was a stick to debut with defeat. The sensations were good because we thought that, out of every 10 games, we would have won 9. But the cross came and we lost, even though we deserved to win. You know, football sometimes has this. Luckily, we believed in ourselves, we believed in what we were doing, we believed in the coach and we were able to overcome this moment by being united, like a great family. We took it forward in the following games (Honduras and Chile), there was a lot of tension because we were playing to go home, but we overcame it all together, which is the best way to solve this type of situation.
RAFAEL NADAL
Tennis player. Winner of 19 Grand Slams. Best tennis player in clay court history.
What is the game you have been most nervous about before playing your entire career?
I would say that the game that I have been more nervous or more stressed, possibly, is the World Cup final because just thinking that you are going to play a World Cup final is already crazy and, when you are in the tunnel watching the Copa del World in the background is a brutal feeling. Everything before the game, once my head starts it is already in what has to be. There was also a special nervousness on the day of the debuts, the day I made my debut with Barca at the Camp Nou and the day I made my debut with the top team in Albacete.
CAROLINA MARÍN
Olympic and World Badminton Champion
Do you think the current team is ready to repeat the successes of your generation? What do you think it takes to achieve successes like that?
The current team has great players and a very good technical staff. Surely you have the level necessary to achieve great successes. From there, it already depends on the moment when the players arrive at the big tournaments and the situations that may occur, but by capacity it will not be. The level is very high, you just need to work well, that people understand each other and understand what the coach is asking for, and, very importantly, be successful to go through phases and overcome the setbacks that arise.
MARC MÁRQUEZ
8 times Motorcycling World Champion
After the final, what was the first word that came to your mind when you came into the room alone and looked in the mirror?
Remembering those details, it comes to my mind that one of the things I said to myself many times moments after winning the final was: “We are world champions.” In front of the mirror, my family and when I was just remembering the final … I repeated it to myself thousands of times because it is like thinking that it was something unattainable and impossible and we had achieved it. We were the world champions, awesome.
JORDI ÉVOLE
Journalist
Andrés, whom we saw the Xavi-Iniesta-Messi trio play together, can you give us some advice to get out of nostalgia and think that football will be wonderful again?
Reply:
Soccer is still wonderful, regardless of names or specific players. Each one likes a way of playing, but it would not simplify it to three players, because everything we achieve responds to an idea and a way of doing things for an entire group. There are still great players and there will always be so that football will keep us falling in love. In any case, I appreciate your words and your consideration for including me in this trio with Xavi and Leo, with whom I lived the best moments of my career. Great memories.
MERCEDES MILÁ
Journalist
Have you managed to know what was the origin of your depression? Exactly, I don't. Can you explain how we feel when the release of the black hole arrives?
I don't think there is a clear point of origin. It may be that a possible origin is when I left the town when I was 12 years old and the bad situations that I lived at the beginning in La Masia, but surely in my town there were situations that could create some kind of trauma or stress that I have been dragging. In the end, there are several determining factors that influence your life and there is a moment when your body and mind say enough and you have to recharge the batteries again.
As for liberation, the feeling of being yourself again, I think it's something else, I always say it. My perception is that it is not that you are again, it is that you return to be more than you have been. In that process you learn much more than you think. I came out stronger, a better human being from a very complicated situation and that is what comforts me the most.
JOSE ANDRES
Chef. Included in ‘Time’ magazine among the 100 most influential people in the world.
You are Spanish and I know that you love Catalonia very much, as I do. What would you say to the Spanish and to the part of the Catalans who do not want to be, so that they understand each other, respect each other? We need leaders like you, who understand both realities, to build bridges.
For me everything is the same from my personal point of view, I respect all the opinions and feelings that each person may have about it. And I would love that from that mutual respect we all dare to look for all those things that unite us, because I am convinced that there are many.
ANTONIO DE LA TORRE
Actor. Winner of two Goya Awards
At some point in your career, due to some downturn, due to the fame or pressure, did you have the fantasy of dedicating yourself to something other than being a footballer? If so, what would you have liked to be?
Yes, I have had less good or down times, but the truth is that it never occurred to me to dedicate myself to something else or stop playing soccer. On the contrary, in those moments I have gathered strength to try to improve and be a better person and footballer. I couldn't tell you what I would have wanted to be if I hadn't been a soccer player. Surely something related to sports.
OLGA VIZA
Journalist
And you touched the sky! What did you learn from that colossal experience?
Surely what I learned at a collective level was that things are achieved by being together, even if there are difficult times, it is the only way to get ahead, trusting in what you do as a team and blindly trusting the teammate and the technical staff. But doing it for real, we were a great family, with a spirit of brutal sacrifice and aware of our possibilities. On a personal level, I surely learned and felt that no matter how dark you see the way you can always fight, fight and believe that you are going to achieve it, against the desire to do and achieve something there are very few things that can prevent you from doing it. I'm not talking about the goal, the goal is only a consequence.