The Pride of Vallekas

Interestingly, Rayo's ultras, the Bukaneros chooses to side with Depor's Riazor Blues, rather than with Celta's Celtarras. And yet Celta is perhaps where we should look for inspiration, because of two signings that happened in the summer of 2011 - Michu and Roberto Trashorras. Since I've already written about Michu before, I'm just going to put a link to the post - you can click here to read it . Nevertheless, without further ado.... Tic. Tic. Tic. The beat of the metronome. Its sound is drowned by the cheering fans yet everyone sees it. And the man controlling the frequency feels it. Knows it. Understands it. As the ball approaches him his eyes see the previous beat and his mind sees the next. The ball arrives at his feet. For a split second - a second that is easily missed to the naked eye, every single player slows down. Time slows down. His eyes don't need to look around - the snapshots are firmly ingrained in his mind. He knows what to do. ...

Trashorras took his first steps in Barcelona back in 1996, when he was only 14 years old. He recalls living in a flat of four in La Masia because it was only at the age of 18 that players were allowed to look for a flat of their own. His eight years there coincided with Guardiola, De la Peña, Puyol, Reina, Valdés and Iniesta. On August 8, 2001 he made his first team debut with Rexach in a Champions League qualifying match against Wisła Kraków. It was 86 minutes when he entered the field for Luis Enrique, the current coach of Barcelona. A few days after that European experience, on October 7, 2001, Trashorras made his league debut against Deportivo, this time entering the field in the 68th minute for Alfonso Pérez. His time at Real Madrid coincided with Arbeloa and Beckham, but he didn't get any first team opportunities for two years there - despite helping Real Madrid B to a promotion to the Segunda. After eight years at Barcelona and two at Real Madrid, Roberto Trashorras w...

So far, he has played 207 games at Rayo, 119 at Celta, 64 at Las Palmas, 12 at Numancia, 75 at Real Madrid B and 122 at Barcelona B. Yes - if Roberto Trashorras plays this weekend, he would have played 600* professional games in a long and illustrious career.  I feel bad for Trashorras. He started out in the Segunda B at the age of 18, reached the Segunda at 24 and then La Liga at 30. His story is one that shows that hard work and dedication can take you places, and that age is no barrier to success. And then after five years of La Liga glory the club that put in faith in him got relegated. Of course, I'm happy and grateful that he stayed as a Rayo fan - but I wouldn't have begrudged him if he'd taken that offer from Deportivo. He deserved to stay in La Liga. I wrote about him here , but that is just a snapshot of his career - a career about which I'm finally going to write about. So, let's "continue" that article... Trashorras took his ...