The Pride of Vallekas

"Thanks for having this interest for lower teams in Spain. That is something that even in my country we lack as everyone cares about Real Madrid and Barcelona but don't see the local and amateur football dying year after year. " -Juan Manuel Serrano "Thanks for contacting me...[projects like these] make the world of football grow!" -Xavi Pérez Ureña For the last 19 days, I published 45 interviews by fans, writers, players and coaches. I wasn't expecting to have so many wonderful people respond to me, and I thank them for their time and cooperation, as well as for answering so many questions! I'm going to be honest here - I certainly wasn't expecting to interview an ex-Barcelona player - let alone two of them. I wasn't expecting to interview a footballer with three consecutive league titles. Or the assistant technical director of Rayo Vallecano. Or an Ipswich legend. Or the nephew of Juan Sabas. Or Mikel Alonso - again. I also...

When did you make the decision to pursue football and what motivated you to do so? I never realized I took a decision, since a very young age I knew that would be my life so I took it for granted that I was going to become a footballer. The motivation was nothing other than enjoying it a lot! What were your initial thoughts when you were at Espanyol and Wigan became interested in you, and what motivated you to move to England? Both moments were very satisfactory. I went to a summer camp that Espanyol organizes and after it I got a letter from the club. I was excited, willing to do it - I was nervous, but the kind of nervous that one gets when you know you have a nice challenge ahead. With Wigan it was a call, but still a very similar reaction. The thing with Wigan was that even though I was bad in English class, I knew I would end up going to England to play football so I didn't bother paying attention as I knew I would learn it there. And so it happened. Did you find...