BarcelonaThe journeys of the Second Division and 1st RFEF teams usually involve hours and hours of bus travel. Adrià Carmona (Igualada, 1992), one of Barça’s great promises of just over a decade ago, experienced a lot when his career began to fall far short of what it promised. In these categories, the pressure the players had could even be higher than when the Catalan was in the ranks of Silvio Berlusconi’s almighty Milan. “After playing I remember that on the bus we ate pizza and sweets compulsively to calm the anxiety. For us the matches were continuous exams,” Carmona explains to ARA in a bar in Plaça Universitat de Barcelona, already freed from these sufferings since two years ago, when he was only 28, he retired from football. Since then, his life is focused on being coach of high-level athletes who carry a backpack on top of them that does not allow them to perform at their best.
Álvaro Morata, Jana Fernández and Marc Muniesa are some of the footballers who have gone through Carmona’s consultation. But the Igualadí does not only serve players of the king sport. Basketball player Pierre Oriola and golfer Eugenio López-Chacarra, among others, have also gone to see him. “Elite athletes suffer a lot more than people think. The life of a professional athlete involves being on stage every day. Everything you do or don’t do has an impact. Not only for you, but also for those around you, your fans and your club. You can’t control everything and many times you suffer because of things that people don’t know about,” says Carmona. At the age of 22, when he was still at Milan, he remembers that during a physiotherapy session he confessed to one of the club’s physiotherapists that, one day or another, he would coach. Back then, still with a whole football career ahead of him, he had no idea that his desire would accelerate so much.
Company by Marc Bartra and Thiago Alcántara
He started reading, studying – he’s been studying psychology for two years – and getting a master’s degree for when the day comes. “In the world of sport, there is a lack of figures so that the athlete has a hand to hold on to,” says Carmona. But while he was acquiring more knowledge, his football career, which had started in the pre-Benjamí of Barça, did not quite take off. In Blaugrana base football, Carmona, who played on the left wing, had always stood out and this caused him to play in teams made up of boys a year older than him. Because of this, he shared a dressing room with players like Marc Bartra and Thiago Alcántara, from the generation of 91. “I’ve been a professional since I was 14. I went to the best physiotherapists and in the summers I tried to prepare better than anyone else. I always demanded of myself in a different way than others because I wanted to be better,” he explains.
This way of facing life had its pros, but the cons would soon arrive. “At the age of 18, I had super high expectations and high self-demand. I had a very strong type of musculature that allowed me to do the first few meters very fast. The problem was that I suffered from many fibrillar breaks as a result of which I always went with one more gear than the others,” he explains. “In 20 or 25 minutes he could solve the game. He saw it as normal. This caused him to play the game at home seven times when he didn’t get it,” he adds. “In my day-to-day life, there was no moment to enjoy myself. When I did well, I entered into normality and didn’t have fun. And, when I did badly, I suffered.” The repercussions didn’t just affect the mind. “At the end of the day, what we think affects our body. And now I’m aware that a lot of the injuries and breaks I had were due to poor management.”
Luis Enrique did not bet on him
Carmona played for three years in Barça’s youth A, but, except for some training, Luis Enrique, the then coach of Barça Atlètic, did not bet on him. And, in the summer of 2010, at the age of 18, he got the opportunity of a lifetime. “When Ibrahimovic left for Milan from Barça, Adriano Galliani – Berlusconi’s right-hand man – and Ariedo Braida – then the general director of Milan and later responsible for the international football of the Blaugrana club – wanted a promising player from Barça and I saw the movement with many good eyes”, remembers the Igualadí.
He started playing in the subsidiary Red-black with the idea of growing, but never made it to the first team. Thus, in January 2013, he went on loan to Zaragoza, where he played three matches in Primera. In the summer of that same year, he would leave for Girona on a free transfer, where, in Segona, he had more minutes. But things still didn’t go well for him and his way kept making stops in Albacete, also in Segona; Espanyol B, in 1st RFEF; and Lugo, once again in Segona. In 2018 he packed his bags to play in India before retiring in 2021 at l’Hospitalet, in the 1st RFEF.
“At the age of 28 I decided to retire and take another path. It is clear that the adrenaline that you experience in a football field with 60,000 people is difficult to live by doing something else. But knowing a player who does not have confidence and that , after starting to work with me, in both games he is doing actions that he enjoys, he also gives me goosebumps,” he explains excitedly. “What is better or what is worse? Everyone chooses their life,” concludes Carmona with a smile from ear to ear.
2023-07-31 14:50:59
#games #compulsively #ate #pizza #sweets #calm #anxiety
