Jonathan Soriano (Pont de Vilomara, 1985) announced that he was hanging up his boots on the same day as 36 years ago. Last September 24 the striker ended an atypical football career that had its climax near the thirties. As he patiently reflects on the upcoming challenges he wants to face, he attends to ARA to assess a trajectory he proudly remembers.
How do you feel after announcing retirement and starting a new life?
– Strange. I was used to doing the same thing every day – getting up, having a quick breakfast and going to work out, and now I have plenty of time to think. Now I try to be patient and take up as much time as I can. I try to get my coaching card, go to language academies, and I also help the agency of my representative (Tactic Group, by José María Orobitg) with my experience and my contacts. I would like to do things within the world of football.
Is it hard to take the step or is it a decision that is being internalized?
– It is not a decision to be made overnight. After leaving Girona I was without a team for seven months. I wanted to keep playing, but I was offered proposals from abroad and I didn’t want to leave again because of the pandemic and the family. In all the offers he received he found some defect. After seven months, I had already gotten into the idea that I wouldn’t catch anything. Until the opportunity came to Castellón. I tried it for two or three months, but I wasn’t comfortable on the sports issue; I saw that he was not fully motivated and did not have the confidence of the coach.
Espanyol is the main thorn in my side ”
His career has been an atypical point, because success has come to him late. How would you describe it?
– Yes, that’s right. I am proud of what I have done. I probably could have done more, but I take it for granted. I’ve achieved beautiful things, titles on a collective and individual level. My career has been a roller coaster. I started at a very young age, made my debut at the age of 17, and it seemed like I had to eat the world when I found a fence in the first team of Espanyol.
Why were the doors of Espanyol’s first team closed to him?
– It’s not that my doors were closed, I just met what is probably the best player in the history of Espanyol, Raúl Tamudo. And there was no young or veteran player who could face him. Being able to train with him was a source of pride for me, as I had been following him since I was a child, but there comes a time when, being optimistic, you want more, and you see that it is very complicated. At that time there was no possibility for Espanyol to play with two strikers, and my progression was slowed down. And when a player doesn’t have minutes, it’s tricky to be able to prove anything. It’s the main thorn in my side, because then, when I came out, I had minutes and I could score goals on different teams. I wish I could have shown something more at Espanyol, but for lack of minutes I couldn’t.
How is the change from Espanyol to Barça experienced?
– At that time it was very strange, as it went from Espanyol, the team of my life, to the branch of the rival team. The last game as a white-and-blue was as captain at the Camp Nou. I went from First to Second B. Over time it was perhaps the best step I took, because it helped me get back into football. Everything went very well.
At Barça B, Luis Enrique was the coach. How is it, to be under the orders of the Asturian?
– Luis Enrique is one of the coaches who has made the most impression on me. Because of the relationship I had with him and because he helped me a lot. He understood that I came from Primera, with a name, and he knew how to train me to fit in and be motivated in a branch with very young players. He knew how to lead me and give me the confidence to be reborn again.
Luis Enrique knew how to lead me and give me the confidence to be reborn ”
At the time, the successes he achieved with Barça’s first team should not surprise him.
– No. In the same way that I was not surprised by the problems he may have had in Rome, because he has a very strong character. But he is a coach with a very clear idea. I wasn’t used to being with a coach who worked so much on the tactical aspect and having to do exactly what he said. But you realize that what you train comes out in matches. He knew that if he kept that idea he would be fine. And so it has gone.
As a Spanish coach, he has been criticized for bringing in some young people, as recently has happened with Gavi. But he precisely has quite a left hand with the young players.
– He is a coach who knows that young people are the future. Gavi is very young, yes, but if Luis Enrique understands that he is a player of the future for the national team, he wants to start shaping him so that he can enter the dynamics of the absolute. He sees it for the future.
He also found fierce competition in Barça’s first team.
– The first year, Ibrahimovic. The second, Villa. The third, Alexis Sanchez. Not bad. But when I went to Barça at no time did I think that there was a possibility of reaching the first team, because my age was a problem. If he played with the first team he could no longer return to the branch.
His next destination was Red Bull Salzburg. It’s a more named club now, but then it was a bit of a surprising leap, right?
– I saw that it was the growth that brought the company, Red Bull. I wanted a winning project, and that’s what I found. When he left Barça he was in a good moment, he had just been the top scorer in the Second Division and had received offers from the First Division. And that he suddenly left for Austria was interpreted for many people as a step backwards, because he was going to a smaller league and an unknown club.
Did the club structure surprise you?
– Now everyone knows him, the club, he has made good signings and has a great structure. But when I went there I didn’t have the current fame. The philosophy that existed when I was signed was not the same as today. They now sign young players, aged 16 or 17, and in a couple of years they will be sold for big transfers. Sadio Mané, Minamino, Keïta, Haaland, Kevin Kampl, Gulácsi and so many other players. I was impressed with the facilities they had, which many clubs would like to have. They have a lot of money and they do everything in an exaggerated way, with the latest technology and amenities for the players. They have grown up in Europe and it is becoming easier to work for them.
In Austria he scored 172 goals and 72 assists in 202 games. Not bad
– He agreed that the efficiency was good, that he had very good teammates and that we had a very attractive style of play. On the offensive level, as a striker, Roger Schmidt’s style is probably what I like best. At that time it was not a team made to win a European title, but with it grew a little enthusiasm. We didn’t have any superstars and people saw us as a simple Austrian team. At that time we may not have been prepared to be able to compete against teams in the big leagues, but now they can do so against Sevilla or Atlético, for example.
It was the sweetest moment of his career. Were there any offers from any team that seduced him and that for whatever reason did not come to fruition?
– They saw no possibility of me leaving. They felt identified with me, they even made me captain, and when there was any interest from Sevilla, Valencia or Germany a formal offer never came in because Red Bull Salzburg was in charge of throwing it all away. back. At that time I would have seen myself returning to the League at a club that played in Europe, because I felt strong and it would have been a good time to return to Spain and do what I could not do at Espanyol. But until the final offer from China arrived there was no possibility of leaving.
In February 2017, BJ Gouan paid 15 million for you, a not inconsiderable offer for someone 32 years old.
– Yes, I saw myself racing at Red Bull, I felt good in sports and being on a winning team is always comfortable. But at that moment I thought more selfishly, about my family and myself, and I thought it was time to do something more for myself. I got a chance to go to China, we talked to the club and I left. I didn’t know how many more years my career would last, but I knew it was one of those opportunities you have to take advantage of because football lasts as long as it lasts.
He changed Austria for China, a radical change in many ways.
– I left a serious country where everything is right and everything has to be perfect in a city that is just the opposite. In Beijing everyone lives as they want. This surprised me, because the traffic was totally different, there was a lot of life on the street 24 hours a day. With 40 million inhabitants, you meet people of all kinds. Life change is not easy. In Austria, with a teacher at the end you ended up defending yourself with German. In China it is very complicated, because they do not speak any English. Their way of life is very complicated and you have to adapt to it. Everyone was telling me that I should have a lot of patience for everything from looking for a flat to going to the bank. When Cédric Bakambu and Jonathan Viera came to the team it was the first thing I told them, that they had a lot of patience.
It coincided with Wu Lei. How did they see him in China?
– Yes, he always sounded there, he was the idol of the country and the team. Also, he was on a very strong team. I was not surprised that he signed for Espanyol, because he was a player who was said to be ready to play in Europe. I was even excited that a player that many people in Spain did not control, and that I had followed, would go to the club where I left. There they have a slightly different philosophy. They have no grassroots football. When they get to the first team, there are players with a lot of quality, but they may not have the intensity they have in the Spanish League. Of players like Wu Lei, intense, fast and with goal, there are not so many! They want to do everything with money, but with that you can’t do everything. It takes time and patience.
In 2019 he packed his bags from China and left for Saudi Arabia, another cultural change.
– When I left China I really wanted to go home, but I came across an offer from Saudi Arabia. He had to take advantage of being on the wheel of the alien. But I was there less time because I found more problems there. I was signed by Jorge Jesús, the current Benfica coach, on January 1st, and on the 31st he was sent off. They bring in a new coach and want other players, it’s a different world. On the other hand, I went there with the family: my wife and three girls in a country where women were not at their best. It was not the best country.
The end of his career was Girona.
– When I left Saudi Arabia I was clear that my time abroad had already ended. I had options from India, but I had already covered the quota overseas. The passport was already full. Girona has probably been one of the teams I have enjoyed the most. At the locker room level, a spectacular family club, is one of the places where I keep a better memory of recent years. Several factors came together: coming home, being able to talk to other people in my language, finding a very nice dressing room with which I have good friendships… The pity is that we didn’t do well on play-off, despite being a club that deserved it.
What time do you have left of your career?
– Luckily I have many moments. Perhaps the strangest thing that happened to me was the afternoon of the birth of my third daughter. On April 20, 2013 my wife gave birth in the morning, but with the pressure because they wanted me to go play I entered the second half of the match against Wolfsberger and managed to score three goals. And at the end of the match I went back to the hospital.
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