“Oviedo’s opportunity is impossible to reject…” (sic). When Quentin Braat was introduced to society in the Carlos Tartiere press room, those present were surprised that the French goalkeeper, who had only been in Asturias for a few days, jumped into the pool with the Spaniard. With some understandable failure, the meta dispatched the media’s questions with ease. It did not cause so much surprise within the technical secretariat of the club, which had warned in his inquiries that both he and his partner were people with concerns, educated and eager to learn languages. The follow-up that ended with Quentin Braat in Oviedo also included aspects that went beyond his sports performance.
Nine months after the act of baptism, the Frenchman is a starter in the blue club, has established himself at the goal and is even fighting for the “Zamora” trophy, the award given to the goalkeeper with the fewest goals conceded in the category.
His signing was the most surprising of last summer, because his name did not appear on the radar of the Second teams and because he was a member of a competition, the French Second, with little recognition. But how did that signing come about? Sources close to the incorporation explain to LA NUEVA ESPAÑA a process that involved various agents within the entity.
That of Braat was the last operation closed by Rubén Reyes as sports director of Oviedo and serves to exemplify how things were done then, in a model that after Tito’s departure they are trying to recover. The first thing was the approach to the French Second, a first raid, as was done with competitions with a less usual profile, as was also done with Portugal or with some Central European Leagues.
Álex Díaz, a member of the technical secretariat, was the first to be alarmed. The scout was struck by the physical conditions, 194 centimeters, of a goalkeeper who was at an optimal age (24) to continue growing, and who also met a fundamental condition: his contract ended in June. In fact, the search had leaked to players in the last or penultimate year of their contract, taking into account that Oviedo, in the Second Division, does not have the capacity to pay for transfers.
Alerted by the first reports, Reyes continued monitoring, also through videos. In addition, the sports management relied on the Big Data reports provided by the company Alebia Analytics, a club collaborator.
The conditions of the meta matched the parameters pursued. “We saw that he had good technique in goal, that he was strong in the air and in one-on-one actions. And that he had a good ball strike,” says a person close to the operation. “The area of improvement that he had to improve was laterality,” completes the same source.
The next step led the club to contact the agent, to see his predisposition for a change of scenery. Another critical point in the operation. Oviedo found a satisfactory answer and activated the next step: live monitoring. It was Mauro de Ves, the goalkeeper coordinator for the blue academy, who traveled to France to see Braat in action with Chamois Niort. That analysis was also satisfactory. At the same time, reports on his personal life began to be collected. “We verified that he was a stable, serious boy who wanted to improve.” Everything fits. The economic agreement is reached quickly and Braat becomes the first signing of the 2022/23 season.
Second in the “Zamora”
As the last link in the exceptional defensive performance of Oviedo de Cervera, Braat aspires to even the highest recognition of a goalkeeper: the “Zamora” trophy. It is the award given to the goalkeeper with the least beaten in the category, on the condition that he plays at least 28 games, playing at least 60 minutes. The Frenchman accumulates 21 games, so he would have to play the remaining seven to aspire to recognition. Braat is among the favorites with 14 goals conceded in those 21 games, which means a coefficient of 0.67 goals per game. Raúl Fernández, Granada’s goal, is the only one who surpasses him, with 0.62. With the same figure as the Oviedo goalkeeper are Caro, from Burgos; Luca Zidane, from Eibar; and Valles, from Las Palmas.
Almost 50% of clean sheets
His conditions seem to suggest that Quentin Braat is a goalkeeper for the future who still has to polish some of his flaws. But it also seems clear that the Frenchman looks better thanks to the elaborate defensive system implemented by Cervera, which limits the options of the rival forwards to a minimum. The combination of the team’s solidarity work and the Frenchman’s conditions has resulted in Oviedo leaving their goal without conceding a goal in 10 of the 21 games in which Braat has been under the sticks. A fact that borders on 50% of clean sheets.
