Raúl Albiol at Divinity

Telecinco’s (yes, I know) gossip site Divinity recently interviewed Raúl Albiol, asking him about a variety of topics, from the national team to his niñas (and whether he’d like a son) to his personal style.  Looking at this post now, I can’t believe Raúl said all this in 13 minutes, but then he does talk very, very fast.  (By the way, some club things are included here, in order to make the post complete.  Feel free to skip over it if you want).

Becoming a champion: it takes effort.  Everything in life needs effort and hard work.  In terms of football, it means starting very young, at the age of seven or eight, playing football, starting in your village, with your friends, and you have to keep on advancing.  In my case, I joined Valencia’s cantera when I was 12, and getting promoted is very complicated because each season you unfortunately see your teammates being cut, and only a few are left in the end.  They demand more each year, and to remain there you have to endure it.  I was lucky enough to be able to continue, I made it to the first team of Valencia, and later on I signed for Real Madrid.  I was also able to  play with the national team, which for any Spanish player is a dream, especially being able to experience the Eurocopa and the World Cup, which all Spaniards will remember for the rest of their lives.

South Africa: before, whenever people saw you, they would say, Real Madrid player or national team player, but now, it’s world champion.  Everyone was caught up in that, even people who didn’t like football much.  They became addicted to the team.  Everyone came out to celebrate the victory, even people who don’t like sports.  It united the entire country… I think those were unforgettable moments for Spain, for the city of Madrid, for everyone, and even though time will pass, you will still get goosebumps when you think about that.

National team values: I think even though there are great footballers, the values of the team are about the team – union, being good teammates, respect, humility, working together in bad moments because before the team won the Eurocopa, it went through some bad times.  There was a lot of criticism, and I think that made the group, the team stronger.  And this union, this team spirit, the fact that we maintained our humility after winning the Eurocopa… we had our feet on the ground and were ambitious, wanting more things, and then we won the World Cup as well.  And now we have the option of continuing like this, as we have another objective, which is to win another Eurocopa, so we’ll see but we know we have to stay the same.  This is a young group with many options and we have to keep the same values as before.

Football in my life: my father played football, and I have an older brother that plays football, and as a kid, there was always a ball at home.  I always liked football a lot, my father talked to me about football, and as a kid I would stay at home watching games on TV instead of going out with my friends.  On weekends, let’s say a Saturday, I preferred to stay at home watching the game with my father instead of going out.  And then later on, playing, enjoying it with my friends, I improved, believing that with hard work my dream could come true, although I knew it would be difficult, since not many people get there.   We’ve worked hard, had a bit of luck, other factors helped and we made it.  So what we have to do now is enjoy it as much as we can because time goes by quickly for an athlete and so you have to enjoy the moment when you can, because you can’t ever go back.

Training: we train for about two hours in the morning, we stretch, we train, work out a bit in the gym.  We also have to watch what we eat, and make sure we rest at home, maintain a calm lifestyle, so that you’ll be prepared for the next day, to stay in game shape.  That’s the part of training that people don’t see.

1.87 meters tall: I wasn’t very tall when I was younger.  At the age of 15, I was a normal height, and in the space of two months, I had two injuries with a  tendon, related to growing, and I grew very quickly in two months, many centimeters in a short amount of time.  This made me quite uncoordinated, since my legs were very long, especially when it came time to play football.  I had to work on this for several months, with special exercises for coordination, because this is very important when you’re playing football.  I never expected to be this tall, but in two months everything changed and so I had to adapt to my new height.

Sports: I’ve always liked sports, including playing other sports.  I play tennis with my friends, or basketball.  I’m usually pretty good at them, well, not like Rafa Nadal, but… It’s good to change things up once in a while, because you can get tired of playing so much football.

Rafa Nadal: he’s accomplished everything, but he’s still so humble and down to earth.  He’s a role model for everyone, and athletes should try and emulate the world number one in tennis.

Being a father: I believe that having two daughters is the most beautiful thing in the world, watching how they grow each day, the things they do.  They have me wrapped around their little finger.  Sometimes it gets a bit crazy, because you have to change diapers, feed dinner to two small girls, but they represent all the hope in this world, the future.

Aiming for a boy? I’m very happy and I wouldn’t change my daughters for anything, but I suppose I can talk more about football with a son, no?  But I have no problems with going to gymnastic or ballet classes.  (Pause)  I’ll have to learn.  (Pause)  Well, if they (his daughters) like football, they can play football as well, who knows?

Cristiano Ronaldo and his 3,000 daily sit-ups: when they say things like this about 3,000 (sit-ups a day) or eight hours of training a day, you can’t believe it because it’s been exaggerated a lot.  We laugh about things like this because 3,o00 is crazy.  He’s going to end up like someone in the movie 300.  And eight hours of training a day is impossible, at least for football, because there are other sports like swimming where you do train for eight or 10 hours a day, I think, but in football, like I said before, we train for two hours a day, and you can do more in the gym or other exercises if you want, but eight hours is too many.  You could do it for one day, but not much longer than that.

Hot footballers: most footballers and athletes like to take care of themselves, to take care of their image, to improve in certain areas, your body, and many athletes are interested in the world of fashion, they do commercials, participate in other things, and they need to have a good appearance for these things.

Grooming: I like to take care of myself, but not excessively.  I always like to be on the middle ground, for everything, because I think that’s the best course of action.  The barber shop where I go gives me advice about what to use on my face, my body, my hair.  It’s good to receive advice from people in the know, who understand these things.

My style: I’m young, I’m 25 years old, I try to dress well.  It also depends on the time of day, what I have to do on that day.  I like to be sporty, I consider myself a young guy.

My wife Alicia: she also likes to take care of herself, which she does very well, so I only have to worry about myself.

Women and footballers: the wives of footballers show up a lot on TV.  I think it’s good for them to have their own life, outside of their footballing husband.  They can be a journalist, an actress, model… or just choose the career they want.  I’m all for this, and in addition, it’s nice when you see a couple, an athlete and his wife, and they’re both famous, each one in his or her profession.

La Eurocopa: I hope it will be like the last one, no?  I hope we can end up as champions, but it will be more difficult because all the other teams want to beat us.  We have a good team, but we don’t consider ourselves the favorites.  It gets more complicated each time.

Divided heart: I’m not going to lie, I like Valencia a lot, but I also like Madrid a lot.  But since I’m from Valencia, I will always go back to Valencia, for the weather, the sea, my family, which make it special.  Each time that I can go back, I do.

Titles and Real Madrid: we have the Copa final against Barcelona, and perhaps out of the three titles, it’s the least known one, but it’s a very important one because it’s been many years since Madrid won it, and it’s against Barcelona, who’s playing very well right now.  So winning this title is very important.  Then we have the Champions, where we didn’t advance pass the round of 16 for quite some time.  We’re fighting for La Décima and hopefully it will come this year.  We have to fight for all three titles because all three are important for us.