Fran garcia (Bolaños de Calatrava, 1999) is one of the last ‘products’ of Factory of the Real Madrid that with more force has landed in professional football. Loaned this season at the Vallecano Ray, that has a call option on it, its premiere beyond the white subsidiary and the Second B it is going smoothly. The Vallecano team fights for promotion to First and he is indisputable in the eleventh of Andoni Iraola.
He is a left-handed back of the school of the Marcelo The Roberto Carlos, whom he met in Madrid and have helped him by giving him advice. Power and his arrival in the rival area are his hallmarks and that is what allowed him to score his first professional goal recently. It was in Copa del Rey and against him Barcelona, the eternal rival of the merengue team.
THE SPANISH SPEAKS WITH Fran garcia before facing a new league match against Tenerife this Sunday. He will step on the grass of the Vallecas stadium, where due to the pandemic it has not been able to coincide with the fans but where the breath of a working-class and warrior neighborhood like few others also reaches. This is Fran, one of the pearls of Spanish football who has already made his debut with the U21.
Question: How about Fran? Entering the second round of the League, how do you face it fully immersed in the fight for promotion?
Answer: With enthusiasm. In the end, it is my first year as a professional. I am happy, eager and ambitious to achieve that goal that we have been fighting for since the beginning of the season.
Q: What is the secret of Andoni Iraola’s Ray? Because at first it seemed that everyone discarded you to be up there …
A: Work, ambition, the desire to continue … It is to keep fighting for what you want and go for it.
Q: How would you say this experience at Rayo is doing better for you?
A: On a professional level it helps me to grow, to continue improving and meeting people who help me to continue taking little steps little by little. And personally, to mature. Enter a much more complex dressing room than that of a subsidiary, meet people who will mark you.
Nor can I say much because things are going very well and we have not had difficult situations to say ‘this situation has marked me a lot’. Better this way, that everything continues to go smoothly and that little by little we manage to reach the final stretch of the season with our goal in hand.
I did not hesitate at any time to take the step, I thought I had to leave Second B
Q: It gives me the feeling that you are happy to have chosen the Ray …
From the first moment I was given the opportunity, it was clear to me. I had been living in Madrid for a long time and I am not far from my family and my people. I already had my life here. They called me and I did not hesitate at any time to take the step because I also believed that I had to leave Second B. What better way than to do it in the same city and close to home. I was not wrong in making the decision.
Q: We are going to leave at the beginning of everything, how does your path in football begin?
A: I started as fingerlings playing in my village with my classmates. We were champions the first year. Alevín’s second year as well, being the only qi elo he had done in the region. The calls began with the selection of Ciudad Real, then that of Castilla-La Mancha. Real Madrid contacted me and that’s where it all started.
Q: In football, as has always been said, very few reach the top, where you already are, what would you say has been the most difficult thing so far in your career as a footballer?
A: The worst were the injuries that I had to undergo at a young age, which have been quite a few. But hey, they are already behind. I knock on the fact that it was a past stage, now everything is fine and I have not had any kind of problem. They are things that you have to live sooner or later and they always come in handy. They have helped me to realize what I really want and go for it.
Roberto Carlos helped me and gave me a lot of advice
Q: Have there been figures that you have been looking at throughout your career?
A: Yes, of course. The case of Marcelo, whom I was close to when I got up to the first team one day. Roberto Carlos, when he was with us at Castilla, he helped me a lot and gave me a lot of advice. It was like a personal trainer, which helped a lot. They are the references that I have been close to and with whom I have been able to count on their support.
Q: Who would you say you look like on the field?
A: Due to qualities and form of play, an offensive winger of the Roberto Carlos style. Marcelo is more technical, more quality. For power and speed I think Roberto. It is also true that, having always been there, Marcelo is also a reference.
Q: Season of joys so far. Continuity with Rayo in the league, fighting for promotion and a goal for Barcelona in the Cup. What did you feel at that moment?
A: At that time I didn’t even know what to do. I had a dedication for my girl and one for my friends and I didn’t even know where to go. I forgot both and I got home and I thought ‘oh my god, I’m going to fall for it’ -laughs-. I didn’t think about it, I didn’t even know how to react.
You can score a goal in the league, there is more probability. But in the Cup, I only played a little while against Elche, Barça was the first to play and I only thought about enjoying and competing, which is how beautiful this profession gives you. I never thought about that [marcar gol]. I didn’t know where to go.
It was my first goal as a professional and nothing more and nothing less than Barça. And more where I come from, which is Real Madrid. It was a lot of joy, in my family and everything. They told me: ‘It turned out that you didn’t even know what to do.’
I had a dedication for my girl and one for my friends and I forgot both -laughter-
On his goal against Barça in the Cup
Q: I hope to repeat a goal against Barça next year in the First Division, right?
A: I wish it were like that -laughs-.
Q: Another good news that this season brought you was the U21 call. There are many positive things in a few months.
A: I wanted to go to Second, to a team like Rayo that gave me that opportunity. One of the things I wanted to do was go back to the National Team and see many colleagues who hadn’t seen them for a long time. Being able to wear the ‘red’. Huce a good start to the season, but did not expect it. I did not think that in such a short time everything could have such an impact. Things when you work, they arrive. I was patient and had that opportunity.
Q: How was the call? What caught your attention?
A: Above all, being able to share moments with colleagues again. See them again. There were many who had not seen them for a long time. Being able to meet them again and enjoy the experience is what you take the most.
Q: How does a young footballer like you deal when only good things seem to happen to him? What are you trying to think?
A: You try to enjoy and make the most of it. In this profession one day you are up, the next you are down. In one streak everything is fine, in another everything against. You have to take advantage of the fact that things are going well, keep working so that it lasts as long as possible, open your arms for all the good things that come and become strong to be up to the task when things are not going so well.
Yes there was a time when I noticed a little more pressure. But, in the end, you can’t put pressure on yourself. You have to enjoy. This is one more opportunity to continue growing, see where the limit is and if you set obstacles it is impossible. You have to try to enjoy things, what I like is going to train, spending time with my teammates, my friends, and competing on the weekend.
Fran García celebrates his goal against Barcelona
EFE
P: The contrast is in that injury you suffered, which luckily did not end up being anything serious. What does a young footballer, who is starting out as a professional, think when he fears such an injury? What was your biggest fear?
A: The first two days I had a very bad time. I didn’t even want to think about it. When I remember, I think and say thankfully that he was left alone in a scare. I was looking forward to undergoing surgery, to a serious injury to the lower body. What I have had so far has been upstairs and it did not prevent me much. Touching the knee … it scared me.
People helped me to calm down, to stay calm, which was not easy. I was calm for a week. We did tests and little by little the knee got better. From there it was a total change. I don’t know if it was the head, which at that moment put more pressure on me.
All went well. The doctors, as I said on another occasion, said how could the knee do so well after such a severe contusion.
Q: When you take your first steps in football, are injuries the most overwhelming?
A: Yes. When you see that you have everything on your face and that due to an injury you have to stop for a while, it ‘burns’ you. But it is not everything, you have to be calm and keep working.
I am 21 years old and I want to go out too, but I have to look out for people close to me
Q: And with the pandemic issue, how is Fran García’s life now?
A: I’ll train, I’ll finish, I’ll come home, one day my girl comes to my house or I go to hers … We try to go out as little as possible because there are many people who are having a hard time. I was close to the beginning of the pandemic and I know that this situation is very complicated. My mother also works on the front line. I know how everything goes.
I am young, I am 21 years old and I want to go out too, but I have to look out for the people that I can have around. You always have to have a little head and say here is the limit. You think about it and it’s the best. You don’t put anyone at risk and you take care of yourself.
Q: Do you think you have had to give up a lot of things to be a soccer player?
A: You give up things, but I do what I really like and I think that will have something positive at the end of the road. I get up and go to training happy because I do something I want. Since I was little I have always loved it and my dreams, like any child has, were to play in the First Division and go to the National Team. It has taken my time from staying up late with friends or having a party, but there is time for everything. There will be time later.
Q: In these months have you been able to soak up the identity of the Ray? That feeling of neighborhood, of struggle …
A: I have not been able to be with the Vallecas stadium full and it is a thorn in the face today. But all that is also spread from one partner to another, the way of wanting to go for something sticks. When one does, he drags the rest behind him. I’m competitive too, so that didn’t take me long to catch -laughs-.
I have not been able to be with the Vallecas stadium full and it is a thorn in the side
Q: This pandemic cools everything down, but what atmosphere do you see in Vallecas around the team and the promotion.
A: People text you to go after the games. You feel sorry because you can’t live it in person with them. But having the support of the people shows and you can see that at home we are one of the best teams in the League. Outside the home we will find the dynamics.
Q: And with the pandemic?
A: Apart from sending you messages of encouragement, people also tell you to take good care of yourself, that everything goes well, that the family is well … That is appreciated. Even without knowing you, because I have not had the opportunity to do it, you notice that ‘heat’. They don’t know you, but you know they appreciate you and that calls a person who knows us a lot.
Q: Finally, if you had to make one wish for 2021 collectively, with your team, and another individually, what would they be?
A: Collectively it is very clear, it would be promoted to the First Division. For me it is the goal marked in red at the end of the season. In person, keep growing and improving as a player and person. It is about continuing to take steps little by little and hopefully next year we can be in the First Division.
[Más información: Fran García confirma que el Real Madrid es una ‘Fábrica’ de laterales]
