The goalkeeper reflects on tournament success with Spain Under-19s and making his debut for the senior side, as well as discussing his move to Stamford Bridge and the differences between English and Spanish football.



I started at the Athletic Bilbao Academy as a nine-year-old. I’d been playing for a local team in my hometown and luckily enough there were four of us who went to the academy, because it was a 45-minute journey to Bilbao, which we did about four times a week, and it’s not easy as a nine-year-old to do that. I worked my way up in the Academy, year on year I went up in the categories and I was lucky that it was a really good academy where I learnt not just about football skills, but values as well.



When I was playing in the lower age groups I had different managers and I took something different from all of them. But I was only 16 when I was involved with the first team and I learnt a lot from trainers such as Joaquín Caparros and Marcelo Bielsa. The fact I joined the first team at such young age meant it was a major turning point. It meant I had to mature much quicker and then there was the opportunity given to me by Ernesto Vervelde.

