Dreaming of the Premier League

I arrived at Rangers in 2007 weighing 84 kilos, and a year later I was at 92.

I ate a lot more, but it was also a lot more hours in the gym. It was necessary to be stronger and heavier to survive the shoulder-to-shoulder battles against the forwards of the Scottish league. They were proper walls.

My recruitment by Rangers had started in the UEFA Cup tie I played against them with Osasuna. It was the round of 16, March 2007. It so happened that, in the first leg at Ibrox Park, I played one of the best games of my life. Also, at the time, Rangers had two very senior centre-backs in David Weir and Ugo Ehiogu. They were looking to refresh that back line.

From then on, the Rangers sports directors and the manager, Walter Smith, started to follow me. And at the end of that 2006/07 season, through my agent, they put an offer on the table for me. Osasuna accepted.

The first few weeks in Glasgow were complicated because of the communication with my teammates and the coach. I knew some English, but not enough to get by normally. So Smith would give me very short and direct instructions in training and in matches. “Move here”; “Close this space”; “Watch out for the striker”.

Luckily, Nacho Novo was also there. He was the team’s main striker and also Spanish. He acted as my translator when I couldn’t understand something.

Everything at Rangers was very different from what I had experienced before. Not only because of the language, but also because my whole life there revolved around football. I had breakfast, lunch and even dinner at the team’s facilities every day. Outside the club, it was also all about football. The fans showed me a lot of affection.

"i played 56 games, which was crazy. I have never played so many games in a season"

I remember, shortly after my arrival, I had a song that was being chanted in the stands. It was about my curly hair and my teeth, which at the time were rather out of place. After a few months, I had several songs.

The atmosphere at games in Scotland was, and is, incredible. Especially the Old Firm derby against Celtic. It’s just amazing. I can’t find any other way to describe it. As I always say, I’ve been lucky enough to play in a lot of derbies in my playing career, but I still think the Old Firm is the biggest. And the first one I played in, we won 3-0!

It was a spectacular season in every way. The team won two of the three cup competitions it played in: the Scottish Cup and the Scottish League Cup. We just missed out on winning the UEFA Cup, too, losing 2-0 to Zenit in the final (below). That was a bitter feeling, because even though Zenit had knocked Bayern Munich out in the semi finals, winning the home leg 4-0, we felt it was a winnable final.

On an individual level, I was voted player of the season in Scotland by the Scottish Football Writers' Association. I played 56 games, which was crazy. I have never played so many games in one season, but all with a great feeling. I think that attracted the attention of several teams in the Premier League, and after the season with Rangers was over, Aston Villa came in with an offer for me.

It was from a big team, and one playing in the Premier League. I’ll tell you something: I had watched Premier League games in Spain on TV when I was a kid. Every Sunday, there was a game on TV at 4pm. And there I was, in front of the TV every week, never missing a Sunday. So when the Villa offer came, you can imagine what it meant to me.

However, my feelings on the day of signing with Villa were very strange. On the one hand, it was one of the happiest days of my life – but it was also one of the saddest. Everything had been perfect at Rangers. It was very hard for me to leave the club, and everything else that came with playing there, but the Premier League was a step I had always dreamed of taking.

"i played against a lot of good strikers in the premier league, but none as good as wayne rooney"

One of the moments I remember with particular fondness is the first day I met Martin O’Neill, Villa’s manager – and a former Celtic manager too. Martin told me he was doubly pleased to have hired me: “One, because you are here, and two, because I’ve taken the best player away from Celtic’s main rivals!” That speaks for the closeness he had with me from day one.

However, my first game in the Premier League was a long time coming. It didn’t come until the fifth fixture. It was just a few minutes against West Brom, because I was coming back from a muscle injury, but it was an incredible few minutes. I experienced live on the pitch all that I had seen on TV every Sunday.

But there is also the other part of the Premier League: the level of the strikers you face. That’s not so nice, at least for the defenders. If they were difficult in Scotland, in the Premier League the level was even higher. There were a lot of very good ones I played against, although I would say that none were as good as Wayne Rooney (below) at Manchester United.

I can’t forget one specific passage of play with him in a game at Old Trafford. A move where I came out of defence with an advantage, thinking I was going to get to the ball without any problems. But Rooney flew past me like a plane and took the ball. That’s where I was, beaten by a player who you might think was a slow or heavy striker because of his physique. Forget about it. You had him close to you, watching his position, and an instant later he was unmarked.

Unbelievable.

In my four seasons at Villa I experienced very good moments, but also very hard ones due to Stiliyan Petrov’s illness. Stiliyan was one of the players who helped me a lot when I came to Villa. The reason for that friendship is quite curious. Strange, even.

Stiliyan had played for Celtic for a long time – 1999 to 2006 – and I had played for Rangers. That supposed rivalry could have separated us, but nothing could have been further from the truth. It brought us together. We had a very good friendship, and we still do.

"we were playing for stiliyan, trying to give him joy as he went through his illness. we wanted to make him proud"

On a personal level, the truth is that it influenced me a lot because of everything that had to happen. I can’t forget the day it all started. It was in a match against Arsenal in March 2012. Stiliyan played that game in a fever, with a temperature of 40 degrees, but he didn’t say anything to anyone. Only after the match, he told Martin that he felt sick. Shortly after that, he was in a hospital bed. It was a very difficult situation for all of us when we found out that he had been diagnosed with leukaemia.

But while you’re trying to digest a blow like that, if you can digest it at all, you have to keep playing. What we did then was to try to turn the situation around and use it as motivation. We were playing for Stiliyan. Trying to give him some joy as he went through his illness. We all wanted to make him proud of us.

Stiliyan (below) also helped us a lot. Every now and then, we would go to the hospital to see him, and he would give us the strength to go on. He would ask us not to be downhearted and not to give up because of his situation. On the contrary, he wanted us to compete to the maximum.

Everything that Stiliyan went through also makes you see the reality. Many times, as a player, you think you are a superhero. That nothing is going to happen to you and you just have to enjoy life. But forget it. From one day to the next, anyone’s life can change. That applies to footballers, too. You are the same as everyone else.

Martin also managed the situation we experienced with Stiliyan very well. He had coached him before, at Celtic, so it was even more difficult for him. I’m sure he didn’t feel like coaching at all, but the team was able to continue to compete at the highest level thanks to Martin’s management of such a difficult situation.

My relationship with Martin continued after Villa. I finished my contract with Villa in the summer of 2012, and he called me to join him at Sunderland. I had other options to go back to Spain, and even to stay at Villa, but when Martin called me I didn’t even have to think about it.

"i wanted to get rid of the itch i had about finishing my playing days in spain"

The first year at Sunderland was good. However, at the end of the season we hit a bad patch and Martin left. His replacement was Paolo Di Canio, a very peculiar guy.

It’s true that his way of dealing with the players, and his ideas about what a professional footballer should be, are far from what I am. On a tactical level, though, there’s no denying that he did a good job when he arrived. In fact, he saved the team from relegation.

The following season, 2013/14, Paolo brought in several players he trusted and I stopped playing. It lasted five games, because a bad start led Sunderland to bring in Gustavo Poyet. The dynamic I experienced with Di Canio was repeated.

That is to say, I started playing and, after a few games, he stopped counting on me. So, in my second year at Sunderland, I played four games in the Premier League. Obviously, I had to find a new path.

Spain was still on my mind, but an offer from Norwich, in the Championship, came up. Norwich had just been relegated from the Premier League, and their ambition was to get promoted again. As I was coming from a year without playing, I saw it as a good opportunity for me. It was the perfect springboard to get me back into the Premier League.

At the end of that season, I was able to celebrate the team’s promotion after beating Aitor Karanka’s Middlesbrough in the playoff final at Wembley. But because I didn’t play the minimum number of games required in my contract to automatically renew, my time at Norwich was over.

After that last experience in England, I signed for Almería for 2015/16. I wanted to get rid of that itch I had about finishing my playing days in Spain, because I had been away for a long time. As it turned out, Almería wasn’t the last season.

"as a coach, i wouldn't mind repeating the same path i took as a player. why not?"

In 2016, I went to Israel to play for one season, and I ended up staying for three years. There, I was able to win my last trophy: the 2019 Israel State Cup with a small club, Bnei Yehuda.

Now, I am taking my first steps as a coach. It is a stage for learning and developing myself. I started this process at San Sebastián de los Reyes, a small club in Madrid that gave me the opportunity to do so.

As a coach, I wouldn’t mind repeating the same path I took as a player. Coaching at Numancia and Osasuna, in Spain, and then on to Rangers, Villa, Sunderland and Norwich. I would also like to work in Israel.

Why not?

It would certainly be nice to go back to all those places I was lucky enough to leave with a good feeling, and to be able to enjoy from a different perspective what I am most passionate about: football.