Mind over Mata! The World Cup winner studying for two degrees, loves backpacking and taking snaps of London

Juan Mata might be a marketing man’s dream were it not for the fact he has an eye on the marketing man’s job.



Mata has a strange fondness for marketing, he has an uncle in the business and is studying for two degrees at a university in Madrid as he plays for Chelsea.



This is not your typical £23.5million footballer with flashes of class in his armoury like the delicious volley he scored against Manchester United on Sunday.



Mind over Mata: Chelsea's Juan Mata is studying for two degrees and has embraced London life since arriving in the capital from Valencia

Mind over Mata: Chelsea's Juan Mata is studying for two degrees and has embraced London life since arriving in the capital from Valencia

His nimble mind seems as beautifully balanced as his body. He swats up on the life of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and spends his free time back-packing around the Spanish countryside or Greek Islands.



His English is fluent less than a year after he arrived from Valencia and he has turned his life in London into an educational crusade, posting photographs of his favourite London landmarks on his social media pages he edits himself.



Popular figure: He has certainly settled better than one of his countrymen

‘For me, this move was an important change in my life as a person as much as a player,’ says Mata, who is living near Chelsea with team-mate Oriol Romeu. ‘I thought it would be harder. It’s not too cold, not snowing,’ he grins. He is joking because he is dressed for the cold snap in his shorts and flip-flops.



‘It was an opportunity to know another city, another country, another culture and another language. I’m trying to know every part of London, to improve my English and enjoy the football. On my days off, I go to different parts of the city.



‘If you want to be anonymous you can go to Soho or Camden and it’s not a problem. There are a lot of Spanish people. If you go to Piccadilly or Oxford Circus you hear lots of Spanish voices but I’m not recognised much.



‘I like Hyde Park and Regent’s Park where you can take good pictures and I have found good tapas in the King’s Road, if you like the ham.’



Mata likes the ham. He is baffled as much by the idea that Jobs chose to eat ‘only fruit and vegetables’ as he is by the fact he wore no shoes. Mata is 23 and he has always had an independent spirit.



‘As a child, we would all go to a tiny village near Burgos and we’d have typical Spanish parties in the summer,’ he says. ‘There would be a band and grandparents dancing all night dressed up as American Indians and things like that.



An education: Valencia and Spain's Under 21s gave Mata the perfect grounding

Like father, like son: Mata has followed in his father's - Juan Snr - footsteps in becoming a professional footballer

‘I travel all year with football but it’s not the same. I have two friends with me at the moment, and in the summer, I travel with them, to different parts of Spain or Europe. We put backpacks on and go somewhere. The other week, we went to a couple of Greeks islands.



‘As a teenager, me and some friends won a radio competition to travel to Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Liechtenstein. I’d love to go to Asia, to Thailand and Japan. I like the beach too. I will need a week on the beach in the summer.’



Mata and his sister Paula were born in Burgos, the ancient capital of Castile in northern Spain, where their father played professional football. They were raised in Oviedo after Juan Snr’s career took him further north to Asturias.



‘He was an old-fashioned left winger,’ says Mata. ‘Not so much like me but like Vicente who played for Valencia, for example, or Ryan Giggs. He was fast, always dribbling, dribbling, dribbling. Too much dribbling.



‘I’ve only seen him play on the videos. We had videos at home and when I was a child I would watch them with him. When I was young, maybe five years old, I’d go training with him at Burgos. They were in the second division and I was just a kid but it was exciting to be in the dressing room with the players. This, I think, is the reason I’m a football player now, because of my father’s life.’



That goal: Mata scored a contender for goal of the season against Manchester United on Sunday... but it wasn't enough to secure the point

At 15, young Mata left home for the Real Madrid academy. He calls it the biggest decision of his life, leaving his family in Oviedo to take up residence with teenagers like Jose Callejon, Esteban Granero, Alvaro Negredo, Borja Valero, Javi Garcia, Ruben de la Red and Roberto Soldado.



Few would establish themselves at Real when Los Galacticos of Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldo, Luis Figo and David Beckham ruled. Mata moved to Valencia at 19 — a period he describes as his Masters in football — and to London four years later when Chelsea paid £23.5m.



He is anxious to be part of the capital’s sporting extravaganza later this year, defying convention that footballers will be simply too tired to compete in the Euro 2012 finals and then the Olympic football tournament.



‘It would be a long season but I am young,’ says Mata. ‘For me, it would be the perfect summer to play in the Euros and then the Olympics. My desire is to play in both.



‘It is something most players can only do once in their lives. Now it is our time. It would be the dream summer to win the Olympics and the Euros.’



City life: Mata says he's treating life in London as something of an education

For Mata, the World Cup is in the bag, and as part of Spain’s all-conquering squad he firmly believes the theory that success in age-limited competitions like the Olympic Games has accelerated success at the senior level.



‘Carlos Marchena told me when I was at Valencia that the Olympic Games and the Olympic Village is something you have to experience; full of young people from different sports, from the NBA and tennis and volleyball and handball players, all together.’



Marchena played in Sydney in 2000 when Spain, declining the allowance of three over-age players, sent an Under 23 squad. They lost in the final to Cameroon but Barcelona star Xavi looks back on his silver medal as the trigger which propelled his generation towards the top. England might take note.



On the up: Mata continues to grow in stature on the pitch

‘This is our best moment as a footballing state,’ says Mata. ‘We are the champions of Europe and the world and now we can win the gold medal at the Olympics.’



Mata is bright, polite and studious and working towards two degrees — one in marketing and one in sports science — at Madrid’s Universidad Camilo Jose Cela.



‘It wasn’t easy to do from Valencia and now I’m in London and I talk to my tutor by email,’ says Mata. ‘I have an uncle who works in marketing in a bank and I’d like to be involved in sports marketing or promotions.’



First though, an attempt to eradicate inconsistencies which have cast them adrift in the title race. Yet, still, Mata believes Chelsea are in touch and takes comfort in the knowledge that the Barclays Premier League is more competitive than La Liga’s firmly established Barcelona-Real Madrid duopoly.



‘There are two teams in Spain with 90 or 100 points,’ says Mata. ‘The other teams have to be third or fourth. Here, maybe five or six teams can be winners. That makes the league more exciting.’



It also gives Chelsea and others a little hope to cling to. Well said Juan Mata, the marketing man’s dream.

Juan Mata was speaking in support of the Chelsea FC Foundation, which offers one of the most comprehensive community programmes in the world of sport - working with almost one million predominantly young people. For more information, log on at: www.chelseafc/foundation



