Pre-season at Manchester United and Jose Mourinho pulls Antonio Valencia to one side. 'It was one of our first conversations,' revealed Valencia this week.

'He said, "When I was coach at Real Madrid, I wanted to sign you as my right back but United said no". It was great to hear because every player needs the coach's trust. For me it was a big moment.'

Valencia's season has not been short of big moments. It was not long ago that many thought the 31-year-old was on his way out of Old Trafford. He feared it, too. New attacking players had been bought and it seemed the Ecuadorean's race was run.

Manchester United's versatile Antonio Valencia says playing for the club is still a dream

Mourinho described Valencia as the most accomplished right back in world football

But as United try to extend their unbeaten Premier League run at home to Watford on Saturday, Valencia will be in the team. A winger all his career, he is a right back now, a switch that looks permanent.

He has proved himself good enough to make 21 league starts and, on handing him a new contract last month, Mourinho described him as the most accomplished right back in world football.

'I am very happy and I'm very grateful for the manager's words,' he said. 'I don't believe I'm the best but I am really pleased to still be here.

'There was a time when I saw players of the class of Angel di Maria and Memphis Depay arriving and wondered if my time was reaching an end. Perhaps I needed to start looking for a new club. Thankfully I just concentrated and trained hard and maybe that's why I'm still here.

The 31-year-old has been pushed back from his early United days playing as a winger

Valencia was rewarded for his consistency at Old Trafford by being awarded a new contract

I feel I have the manager's trust. I'd like to stay for six more years

'Mourinho has shown faith in me to stay here so I'm delighted. I don't want to say I am 100 per cent a right back. I still feel like a right-sided attacking player but I guess I am getting there.

'It's quite tough because you need to focus even more because you're playing closer to your own goal. One misplaced pass can result in you conceding a goal.

'I feel I've improved in that area but when I'm on the attack it's like I'm in my position. But I am in the team and feel like I have the manager's backing and his trust.

'I have a new contract and I love the club, the city and my family like living here in Manchester. I would like to stay here as long as I can, five even six years, more maybe!'

The former Wigan winger is happy to play where he is told despite his attacking instincts

Valencia says his family are happy living in Manchester and that he is settled at Old Trafford

That may seem ambitious and the broad grin on Valencia's face indicates that he knows it, too. You wouldn't put too much past him though.

Valencia has already survived one career-threatening injury to build a 'second career' at United and this season broke a bone badly in his right arm only to be back on the field three weeks later.

'I broke my leg against Rangers (in 2010) and it did cross my mind that I might not be able to play again at all,' he recalled.

'It was a bad injury and a hard recovery but I have nothing but thanks for the medical team here. It was them more than my own work that got me back. But I did worry of course.

'This season it was a complicated operation on my arm but at least you can protect it with a cast. You can't do that with a leg!

Valencia already feels as though he is into a 'second career' at United having broken his leg

'With your arm you can play as it heals. It's just my arm.

'There was some pain, yeah. At first it was hurting and I was scared about falling. But you just want to play at this club.

'That's not because you are scared of missing your place but just because you enjoy playing so much. If I don't play, you miss all the fun.'

The marauding full-back suffered the serious injury in a Champions League game in 2010

Earlier in the season, there didn't seem that much fun at Manchester United. Results under Mourinho were poor and everything looked a little like hard work. As spring beckons, however, United are on the hunt for a top-four place and have an EFL Cup final to play two weeks on Sunday.

At the club's AON Training Centre on Thursday there was certainly much to enjoy. The Manchester United Foundation were holding their third #SchoolsUnited event as children joined Valencia, Paul Pogba and five other first-team players to try a series of football-related challenges. At the same time, 11 team-mates were meeting children at schools across Manchester.

Valencia also runs his own foundation at home in Ecuador and said: 'It's great being here and knowing we are helping out and doing our bit to help Manchester United's image and football's image as a whole.

United's No 25 took part in a Manchester United Foundation event put on this week

Valencia is looking forward to the prospect of silverware against Southampton in the EFL Cup

'I am always grateful to have this life and football has made that life for me. It's always important to do something for others who have the same dreams that I used to have. The club does lots like this.'

After the session is over, Valencia sits in an adjacent dressing room and looks back over his life less ordinary.

He has been a United player since 2009 and is four short of 200 league appearances. He has two Premier League titles, an FA Cup and League Cup and played in the 2011 Champions League final defeat against Barcelona.

Asked if he could ever have dreamed of this as he grew up in the poor oil town of Lago Agrio in the north-east of Ecuador, he laughed.

'It would have been impossible to believe because at that age I never thought I would travel further than the corner of my own street,' he said.

Lago Agrio was carved out of the Amazon rainforest in the 1960s when oil was discovered. It's a tough town and Valencia's upbringing was hard.

Valencia is closing in on his 200th United league appearance since joining the club in 2009

The former Villarreal midfielder pictured playing against England before the 2014 World Cup

Young Antonio looked like a jaguar running past a cactus

His house — a shack, in all honesty — was opposite the Carlos Vernaza Football Stadium and that provided a lifeline for a young boy who took his ball to school every day.

His education was basic and his school reports modest at best but it was a decision made at the age of 15 that set Valencia on his journey to the Premier League.

Hearing that Ecuador Serie A team El Nacional were hosting trials, Valencia borrowed the bus fare from his mother to make the 160-mile journey to Quito. He never told his father and he never came back. 'It was pure nerves that I was suffering on that journey, because I didn't know where I was going to sleep or eat,' he recalled.

'I really didn't know what the future would hold but I had a huge hope and desire to play football, you understand? That's all I was thinking about, nothing else.

'I can remember it like yesterday. It will always be etched in my memory because it's still a motivation for me.

The experienced wing-back was named United's player of the year for the 2011-12 season

Valencia has come a long way since growing in Lago Agrio in the north-east of Ecuador

'I remember when we arrived at the complex. There were bunk beds in the dormitory. Another kid gave me some sheets, saying that was all he had to help me with. Other kids offered their support too. And that's what I remember about my first night there. I'll never forget it.'

Valencia sailed through the trial the next day and progress at El Nacional was rapid. Recently, United's in-house TV station travelled to Ecuador with Valencia to visit the club.

The brilliant programme is called The Amazon to Old Trafford and is on YouTube. In that footage, esteemed Ecuador midfielder Juan Carlos Burbano tells how the young Valencia resembled 'a jaguar running past a cactus'. Valencia, meanwhile, recalls being given his first pair of boots.

'They were a white pair of adidas,' he said. 'Before that I had only plimsolls.'

These days he is viewed as his country's best ever player and most famous export. As a young player, the regime was strict at a club attached to the army.

The man capped 87 times at international level visited where his career began at El Nacional

Valencia is part of a confident United side at present looking to extend their unbeaten run

'My fitness coach was a major in the army, and the guy who looked after the complex was a captain,' explained Valencia.

'So you had to get up in the morning at 6.30am and make your bed and clean everything so it was spotless. Fifteen bunks in one room.

'You had to have discipline or you would fail but that helped me in England.

'I didn't have any difficulties in that respect when I came here because I was already prepared for anything.

'I'd not had the chance to go back there in 12 years so when I went back to do the TV programme it brought it all back, where you lived, slept and ate.

Valencia lifts the FA Cup after being part of the United side which beat Crystal Palace in May

Jose Mourinho has preferred to use Valencia as his right-back for 21 games this campaign

VALENCIA STATS 2003 - 2005 El Nacional 83 (11) 2005 - 2006 Villarreal 2 (0) 2005 - 2006 → Recreativo (loan) 12 (0) 2006 - 2009 Wigan Athletic 84 (7) 2009 - Manchester United 196 (13) * League appearances and goals only Advertisement

'It really does give you goosebumps. It's amazing to think of this journey I have been on. All the time I was thinking, 'Can I really do this?'

'The path has been difficult and complicated but I needed a better future and that is what makes me proud now.

'I can see my family, and in particular my parents, enjoying the stuff that happens in my career. That really makes me happy.'

Valencia was not on the Premier League's radar at all until Paul Jewell spotted him in the 2006 World Cup while the Wigan manager was working for BBC Radio 5 Live. Jewell brought the young winger to the North West on loan from Villarreal and has subsequently described him as the best player he has ever worked with.

Valencia said this week: 'When you're 20, and you come to a country where it's really cold and rains a lot, you end up asking yourself what you are doing there.

'I didn't speak the language, I didn't know the customs and traditions.

'Sometimes in a morning I would look out at the mist and rain, I'd say to myself, 'It can't be true that I'm here!' But I had to be strong because I already had my daughter Domenica to look after and I was also representing a whole nation of people.'

Valencia was played as a winger throughout his Latics career and developed an eye for goal

Steve Bruce made Valencia's loan switch to Wigan permanent and the Ecuadorian proved a hit

Those who remember Valencia at Wigan — Steve Bruce eventually turned the loan into a permanent transfer — talk of a shy boy with a sense of humour. They say the same at United. 'Is that what they say about me here?' asks Valencia in mock surprise.

Valencia was looked after by a core group of players including Emile Heskey — who would invite him round to watch football — Kevin Kilbane, Leighton Baines and Chris Kirkland. 'It was the perfect dressing room,' Valencia recalled.

'Sometimes they would even write Spanish words down for me to help in training. They were humble enough to do that. It was touching, a great curve for me, and I couldn't have done this without them.'

Present every step of the way back then was translator Phil Dickinson. The two friends met again for this interview.

Many were surprised at the £16m spent by United on Valencia but he has proved his worth

No Premier League player has completed more crosses than Valencia so far this season

In those days, Dickinson would sit next to Valencia in the changing rooms on matchday and was once asked to put on a kit and train with the first team.

'I didn't understand a word and the manager never held back,' Valencia laughed.

'He'd be coming out with some tasty language at half-time and sometimes he (Dickinson) would say, 'It's OK, I won't translate that. You will get offended'.

'But I would say that I had to know everything that he was saying!

'Once they made him get his boots on and I couldn't believe it. We were doing drills and he was translating and playing one-twos with me. They were great times at Wigan.'

The Ecuadorian is only too willing to pass on his experience to the next generation of stars

Valencia didn't believe Bruce when he told him that United were interested. Subsequent glories at Old Trafford may have signified the culmination of his great journey but under Mourinho he believes he has road left to travel.

This season no Premier League player has completed more crosses and Valencia's most recent provided a key goal for Zlatan Ibrahimovic at Leicester.

'I think the team have improved, we're playing well and high on confidence,' he said.

'We just hope that the fans are happy at what we're doing. For me, this is still just a dream.'

Sir Alex Ferguson brought Valencia to Old Trafford in 2009 and the move has been a success

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