Juanpe Ramírez returns this Saturday to Las Palmas. The Girona center-back faces the team against the team from his homeland and the one that gave him the opportunity to get excited about football. He made his debut with the first Canarian team in the Second Division and, precisely, this Saturday marks 11 years of it. Francisco Castellano gave him the alternative when he was a youth in a match against Rayo Vallecano (0-0): “It seems like it was the other day when I debuted,” he recalled on the Canarian club radio. Juanpe is looking forward to competing again and he is especially excited that the first match is in Las Palmas. Yes, “I will not be able to see family or friends. It will be a phantom visit because we will go from the airport to the hotel, from the hotel to the stadium and then back to the airport.”
For Juanpe it is always special to face Las Palmas for its yellow past. Of course, at the end of the 2012-13 season the doors of the club were closed to him and he had to find accommodation in Racing, which at that time was active in Second B: “When you arrive so young to the first team in your land, normal it is to think that he will be there for many years and he never imagines seeing himself outside. With the passage of time I saw that opportunities did not come, I did not find my place and I had no choice but to find my way. Luckily, after so many years I have been able to enjoy soccer at all levels. When I left Las Palmas I had to step back, play in Segunda B, but then I was able to enjoy Primera, two seasons, and now, again, I am fighting to return. “Returning to the First Division is what he wants and that is why his Girona fights. He dreams of direct promotion and is not afraid of the challenge because” this is the pressure we have since We went down last year. We have 11 games to return to where we were, We know that there is less and less time left and we do not think of anything other than ascending. We have time to get closer to the first two places. Although it will be very difficult because the margin of points is wide (they are eight points from Zaragoza, second), perhaps this new League that we will play can make it easier for the classification to narrow in one or two weeks “. The rojiblanco dressing room is excited and “eager to roll. We are all 200 percent. There has been too much time to reflect on the confinement and we have missed this much. Perhaps physically it has become a little short this month that we have had preparation but to compete we need to be well on our heads, psyched and we have trained this. The head has been too calm and putting it to work is not going to be easy. And more with matches every three days, with hardly any days to recover. But we will have to adapt. “
Finally, the players are beginning to get used to being constantly subjected to medical controls and, without going any further, Juanpe revealed that last Thursday they were subjected to tests and when they return from Las Palmas, on Sunday, they will repeat. Finally, he spoke of the fact of having to play without an audience and he did not doubt that “there will be teams like Las Palmas that will notice it. At this time of the season we are in, the last days is when everything is decided, and I think it will influence. team will have to adapt. The other day I was watching Rayo-Albacete for a while and football without a hobby becomes strange. We will see how people live in the countryside. “
