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Rafa Marín, Alavés center back on loan from Real Madrid. The son of Farito and Mari, from a Sevillian district of about a thousand inhabitants, Guadajoz. “A quiet place with very humble people, surrounded by nature,” describes the bucolic defender, who will turn 22 next Sunday and who this Tuesday (9:30 p.m., DAZN) hopes to make his debut at the Bernabéu, his training home. His name appears among the candidates to return at some point to the white club when the Erasmus ends, which this year has him in Vitoria as a fixture of Luis García Plaza.
Is it true that your parents didn’t want you to go to Madrid? “People read it and ask themselves: ‘How could you not want to?’ But it is a complicated situation if you don’t live it. I was 14 years old and you have to put yourself in their shoes: separating from a child and sending him to a huge city. My family, which is very humble, has never left the area of Seville. And we have always been very united,” says the defender, who proudly elaborates on the trace of his origins.
My parents have always worked in the fields, from what they earned, and they made a great sacrifice for me
“When I played for the neighborhood team, in the youth team, I had to go to Seville, to another club, to make myself known. That meant a great effort for my family. It was an hour to go and another hour to return, every day. My father and mother were working. My father has always been in the countryside, from which he has grown. Also in plaster or baker’s plaster. My mother had an accident, she fell from a tree when she was climbing a ladder, she hurt her sword quite a bit and now she is a pensioner. But there, thanks to those trips, I was able to show myself and Sevilla signed me for the first-year youth team,” the center-back recalls through a video call.
Rafa Marín arrived at Valdebebas in 2016 after two seasons in the Pizjuán youth ranks. Non-negotiable for Raúl in Castilla the last two years, the failure to achieve promotion to the Second Division definitely pushed him to prove himself in the elite, following Madrid’s protocol with youth players: perform away first before competing at the Bernabéu. “I felt prepared. I needed to discover First Division football. You have to work hard, improve, become mentally and physically strong, and, if they call you in the future, take advantage of it,” develops the centre-back, who avoids any question about the possibility of joining the white team next summer. “I owe myself to Real Madrid. Things are like that. “Now I am on loan at Alavés,” he says. For Carlo Ancelotti, as he commented this Monday, “it is an important experience before eventually returning.”
I needed to discover First Division football. You have to work hard and, if Madrid calls you in the future, take advantage of it.
During the course, his biggest surprise and change of chip has had to do with his physique. He does not forget the exact moment: “I arrive at the preseason, in Benidorm, I get into the shower, all my teammates take off their shirts, I look at myself and say: ‘No, this [su cuerpo] It is not in line with what is in the locker room. So I beat myself up or things are going to be worse than I want.’ Today I already look a little like them. I have improved,” confesses Marín. “I have been with a nutritionist, eating well and a lot. I really like my diet because it is not very strict. When I have to gain weight to be in volume, I eat a lot more, although healthy things, wisely. I have my board and I weigh everything raw. And I have also done many double sessions. In the afternoon, I go to the gym for another couple of hours. I had to improve this and I have achieved it. “Football players are becoming more and more athletes,” the 1.91-foot-tall Alavés centre-back develops with conviction.
Regardless of what the immediate future dictates, the center back feels that his career “is on track.” With the Basque team, he has been the main dish of a salvation tied up four days in advance. “You could say that we have surprised ourselves, but then seeing the team we have of hard-working people, no. That has been the secret: the group. The people, not the footballers. “Here, no one believes themselves to be more than anyone else, it’s already visible,” claims the central defender.
The key for Alavés has been the locker room; people, not footballers. You miss a pass and they don’t tell you anything
He acknowledges that at first he had his cautions – “fear in quotes” – to see how he would find himself in “a different locker room, with players adapted to the First Division”, but that fear soon went away. “Here you miss a pass and they don’t tell you anything. On the contrary, they encourage you,” he points out. He also had to keep up with the pace of the category. And then the pleasure of a simple victory or even a draw at home. “Before I won and I was happy, but that’s it. It’s a party here,” he warns.
Having achieved his personal and group objectives this season with Alavés, now it is his turn not to neglect himself for the Olympic “dream.” “I think about that a lot, I’m not a conformist,” closes Rafa Marín.
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2024-05-14 03:15:00
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