Now that he is the most inspired goalkeeper in Europe (84% saves), UD Las Palmas footballer Álvaro Valles thinks a lot about the day that another goalkeeper, Nico Monclova, broke his cruciate on a Third Division field. “That’s why they gave me the opportunity,” says Valles’ wife, María Saravia, who often remembers her husband, a debutant in the First Division at 26 years old in the team that hosts Real Madrid this Saturday (4:15 p.m., Movistar ). That moment in which the destinies of two goalkeepers crossed contains everything important in Valles’ life: the rejections of teams, the fall to inconspicuous places, his commitment to work. Even love.
In September 2017, Monclova broke his cruciate in the 20th minute of Gerena’s first game of the season, a town of 7,500 inhabitants near Seville. The goalkeeper’s misfortune opened hope to Valles, who at 20 years old was languishing without prospects at Betis B: he went there on loan and at the end of the season he was hired by the UD Las Palmas reserve team, where he continued his intricate route to the elite. Gerena’s was not the first fall.
Luis Miguel García, the coach he had when he arrived at the Sevilla youth academy, at the age of 9, remembers another, when he was a cadet, at 13 or 14 years old: “He had an injury, and he went to Don Bosco to recover,” he remembers. the boy’s move to a neighborhood club in the city. “He has never had it easy. But he never put on a bad face. He motivated him to continue learning. He was clear that he wanted to be a footballer.” His wife is struck by his mental strength: “He is a controller of his thoughts. Since he was a child, he has had so many traps… and he has only known how to overcome them.”
When García met him, the boy who noticed Casillas and Buffon, he already stood out for one of the attributes for which he continues to stand out today: “His main characteristic was his footwork. He entered the rondos and was one more,” he remembers. StatsBomb data underlines that skill: he is the tenth goalkeeper in Europe who contributes the most with the pass. The analytics company’s model measures how much each action of a footballer brings the goal closer to scoring by comparing it with other similar situations and seeing how many of them ended up in the net.
Pepe Mel, current coach of Creta, who coincided with Valles at Betis and Las Palmas, also highlights this trait: “He has a fantastic game with his feet. He looks like a midfielder as a goalkeeper, and he helps a lot with getting the ball out. That tranquility, that serenity and that good game give you the opportunity to build the attack from behind and always have superiority, because he is the support that the center backs have to not lose the ball,” he explains. “Apart from that, obviously, he has goalkeeper qualities, because in the end, as Di Stéfano said, goalkeepers are meant to stop it.”
At that point this course is also being outstanding. There is no goalkeeper in the five major European leagues who surpasses his 84% of saved shots on goal. Not only that. If you look at the difficulty of those shots, his performance is also notable: according to the StatsBomb model, it is expected that he would have saved 71%, which means that he outperforms the model by 13 points. Only Donnarumma, from PSG, is better, with 14 points more than expected. Valles avoids a goal every two games.
Only six years earlier he was in the Third Division, discarded by the Betis reserve team. “I’m not going to come up now, I’m coming from the mud,” says his agent, Rodolfo Orife, which Valles often repeats. “When he plays at the Bernabéu, for example, or against Atlético, we talk about it: ‘Remember Gerena, when you played in towns where there weren’t even showers.'”
Orife began working with the goalkeeper in one of those falls along the way: he saw him at Don Bosco when Sevilla had discarded him (“good looks, good physique”) and notified Betis, who signed him. He has seen him get up and arrive: “What I value most is his mental strength, his tranquility.” Then, he took him from Gerena to Las Palmas, where he also suffered his setback.
At the beginning of the 2021/22 season, Raúl Fernández returned after a two-year knee injury, which had opened the door to the first team for Valles, and Pepe Mel sent him to the bench. Desperate, in the winter market he negotiated to go to the United States, but the club did not agree to sell him. Then, his now-wife crossed paths in his life, who turned out to be Nico Monclova’s childhood friend: they both grew up in the Sevillian town of Lora del Río. Through her, Valles ended up becoming friends with that goalkeeper whose injury opened an unsuspected path for him through Tercera.
Then, the wind changed: the club dismissed Mel, hired García Pimienta, the current coach, Valles played again, they were promoted the following season with him playing, and until today. “He says that I am his luck,” says Saravia.
He is superstitious and a believer. He brings to every game a piece of the clothes of the Virgin of Setefilla, that of his wife’s village, little cards and a medal. He also wears the same underwear the entire season, a garment that he asks Saravia to choose for him in the summer and this season it is yellow and black. Once, when he was in Seville to play against Betis, he realized that he had forgotten him at home. She had to catch a plane to take her away before the game.
Valles’ rituals allow him to know what the last family meal will be before a game: always macaroni and breaded chicken fillets, which he has to cook. It’s also easy to predict what she’ll be watching on TV at almost any given moment, with her 12-year-old son and their 11-month-old daughter: “Football all day. Even the baby applauds the games.” In those sessions, he is especially interested in penalties: “he says: ‘That one goes to the center, that one to the right.’ And yes,” says Saravia.
Everything is flowing now for Valles, although his agent always reminds him that he has only played 20 games in the First Division. But his exceptional moment triggers rumors about the interest of other clubs. They try not to talk about it much, but Saravia can’t help but dream about the possibility of playing the Euro Cup with Spain starting on June 15, despite the small disruption that it would cause: “We have everything for a wedding celebration on June 22.” June, but if it has to be postponed…”
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