Roberto's positive for Covid-19 returns ownership to the Catalan goalkeeper and he will return to the goal in the stadium where he was a long time, but had few opportunities. The illusion is mixed with the responsibility for the game, while he reflects on his experience outside of Barça and with the coronavirus.
Are you especially excited to regain ownership at the Camp Nou?
Well yes, the truth, and it is a double illusion to be a starter again and to do so at the Camp Nou. We know that it is going to be a very difficult game and we are going to have a lot of work.
A difficult game in a very difficult season. He started playing, took the Covid-19, lost ownership, regained it, lost it again and now, headline again …
Yes, with this pandemic it is rare for everyone, I have passed it, now it has been Roberto's turn … We have been changing a bit because of this issue and because of the coach's decisions and we have to continue working at the highest level so that when we play, do our best for the benefit of the team …
What message have you conveyed to Roberto?
I have given him a lot of encouragement and I have recommended him a lot of patience. In the end, it is what is needed because you are locked up at home for a while and it takes quite a long time and you have to take it that way to be able to return safely to training.
If you don't mind, tell me about your experience …
I had a pretty bad time for two weeks, the first one, especially, I was quite pachucho. The first three or four days were quite bad with headaches, fever, I had a muscle pain that I had never felt, my body hurt a lot. I lost my smell and taste, it was hard for him to leave, really. The headaches were tremendous. I was taking medicines and nothing was working for me, so it's a pretty long recovery, you have the feeling that you don't finish 100% until two or three weeks. I think we have to normalize it, it can happen to anyone and footballers, as you are seeing, we can also take it.
One wonders how or where did I get it? or what have I done something wrong?
I think everyone thinks so. We were careful and my wife, my son and I took it. It seems that my son took it at school, but we are not sure either. We had a clear conscience that we had done what we had to do, had complied with the rules and had not taken it for some irresponsibility. This virus is everywhere and you can catch it when you go shopping or at school.
You have just admitted that you had a bad time, when you saw the images that are seen these days in Madrid, in Barcelona … What is going through your head?
Honestly, I think they are not aware of what can happen to them. Not only them, but any family member if unfortunately they catch it. Because then comes the worry and the feeling of guilt if you pass it on to your parents or your grandparents. They sure have older relatives who are at risk. I do not understand those attitudes and I would ask for caution. Unless you always wear the mask because it is very necessary. I understand that people want to interact, it is understandable, but we have to make an effort, there are already vaccines, progress is being made and there is much less left. You have to be patient, to see if in a few months we can go out quietly to the streets.
Going back to football, is it a brown one to return to ownership with Barça as it is now?
It is an opportunity to do something important. It is true that Barça is in a good moment of the game, with great confidence, things are working out for them, but why not? We stand up to Sevilla, they are one of those rivals who can beat you at any time even if they are not 100%, but if we give our best version and they do not have a good day … why not give a little substitute?
After a bad start to the year, the team has taken its head a bit, it has 27 points, how many do you think it will take to achieve permanence?
I want to think that with 10-11 more, maybe 12, it will be done. The more you do and the sooner you do them, the better. In the end you have to go game by game and seeing what others do so that salvation is closer.
What do your friends say to you in the Barça dressing room?
Obviously they are fine now, right? They have confidence, with a Cup final parked there, they have options to win the League. They are at a very high level of play, they create many, many chances, they subdue the rivals and we will have to be very good to get something out, but we must never stop believing and why not this time?
In a season as strange as Barça's, in all respects and yet they are favorites to win the League …
If true. They are a great team, they are doing a good job, Koeman has been gradually putting his ideas, his style of play, and the team is understanding what they want and little by little they are assuming it. From the outside, you can see a hard-working team that has the style that Barça has always had, but with the peculiarity of the new coach. They can get you three very long center backs and lanes, they can play you 4-2-3-1, they have different variants that make them very dangerous.
A few years ago they did an interview in which they asked you if it was very cold outside of Barça and you said you didn't know because you had never played outside … Is it very cold outside of Barça?
I tell you that in Valladolid I have been very cold (laughs). It has never happened so much …
I don't think the question was going to go there …
It has paid me a lot to go out. I had been in the first team for three years, but I barely had minutes and here in Valladolid I have felt like a player, a professional, a footballer who can contribute on the field and I am very grateful to what I have experienced here. Promotion to First Division is one of those things that I will never forget and I have managed to feel like a First Division player because, in the end, I was there at Barça, but not participating regularly made you lack something to feel completely fulfilled and here in Valladolid I have been able to do it.
If they were to choose a Barça player so that he would not play on Monday, he would tell me Messi, of course …
Obviously, he is a player who does a lot of things. Not only does he score goals, but he gives assists, sets the pace of the game, attracts rivals to create spaces. Little can be said about Leo that has not already been said. Although it is also nice to face him, play a good game and have things go well for your team to get a good result.
And how have they returned after the five-day hiatus due to the outbreak that emerged?
We have adapted, many teams have suffered and you have to adapt, know what can happen to you and that you have to keep working. We've had the whole week to prepare for the Camp Nou game and that's how the team is, psyched up, eager and with the idea of going to play a good game. We cannot control the circumstances of Covid-19 and they are things that happen, adapt and move on.
How do you think Covid has influenced football due to the lack of rest this summer, after a final sprint last season, little preseason, many injuries, sick players … Will it be the rarest in a long time?
I think so and, in addition, rare, hard. As you point out from the end of last season, which was terrible, after such a long confinement, we had been without training together for two months, without touching the ball, it was terrible. And this season is being very intense, we know the cases of covid-19 that have occurred in many teams, you have to fight with that, with casualties, with a tight schedule, without people in the stadiums who always give you a plus, for that are results that in previous seasons was difficult to imagine. Strange things happen. Yes, it is the hardest and weirdest season I have ever experienced.
Do you dare to give a result for Monday?
Anything that is getting a positive result will be good seeing how they are now that they won 1-6 at Anoeta and that they punched the table showing that they want to win the League. They are playing the League and we will go to the death because we are not playing life, permanence and we will try to get something positive.