The elite of professional football, essentially in the big teams, has created a bubble enchanted by fame and charm, easy to obtain, generally ephemeral, always dangerous, especially for the youngest. “I was lucky to have my father, without him, without his advice, I wouldn’t be where I am,” remembers Carles Aleñá (Barcelona, 26 years old), pearl of the Barcelona and La Rojita youth teams, today under the orders of José Bordalás in Getafe. “You’re very young, people are starting to get to know you, you’re starting to see a little money…” he says. But, when most kids lack a voice of reality, Francesc Aleñá, former footballer for Jaén, Elche and Lleida, among others, intervened. “He helped me keep my feet on the ground, to be aware of how much everything costs.”
There is an anecdote that marked the way he behaved in a professional locker room, surely also in life. “It was the time when the Barça first team players were given an Audi,” Aleñá remembers. More as a hedonist than as an adult, essentially because he was a child, he ordered the Q7, the best of the German automaker’s offerings. Then, his father appeared: “What car did Sergio Busquets ask for? Well then, you order one 10 times smaller. When you have been in the first team for 10 years, you will be able to order the car you want.” It’s easy to get confused when you rub shoulders with Messi and company and when you come from being the star in each of the lower categories of one of the most popular quarries in the world.
For being left-footed and skilled, for wearing the number 10 on his back and wearing a bracelet on his arm, also for his curly hair, Aleñá was baptized the Maradona of La Masia. “I wouldn’t call myself the star of the youth team, but I did feel important. And it is true that it made a difference.” In the Barcelona Sports City they still remember a youth duel between Ajax and Barça. “Carles and Frenkie played [De Jong]. The good one was Aleñá,” explains a Barça youth football coach. “No, no, no,” Aleñá insists; “Frenkie was very good. And he still is.” More reflective, without nostalgia for a glittering past or romantic with the promising future, the Getafe midfielder emphasizes: “What’s the point of remembering the past and dreaming of the future, if in football it’s all present? It is true that at that time I stood out and that everything turned out for me. It is also true that my idea was to succeed at Barça. But you have to learn to live with those personal frustrations and think regarding the day to day.”
The first blow of reality came shortly following stepping into the Camp Nou. Josep Maria Bartomeu’s board took away his number 21, precisely to give it to Frenkie De Jong, one of the last star signings of the last meeting, still waiting for his great breakthrough as a Barça player. Later he had to deal with the pragmatism of Ernesto Valverde in a team in which there were plenty of midfielders. “It was a spectacular moment. There were Rakitic, Arturo Vidal, Coutinho, André Gomes, Arda Turan, I also coincided with Iniesta…”. And following a match once morest Athletic in which he was taken off at halftime, Ernesto Valverde left him in the stands for several months. “It hurt me how the management was. I was very young”. But once more the advice from his father and Iván de la Peña, his representative, appeared: “You have to play.” After 44 games and three goals, he left Barça.
The first option was Betis (19 games and one goal, in the 2019-2020 campaign). And, the following year, the litmus test: Getafe (accumulated 116 duels and six goals). Another way of understanding football. But don’t they teach defense at La Masia? “You don’t defend much, it’s true,” he defends himself. “You learn, but maybe not at the level that is needed to compete right now. It is something that I have improved.”
Because there are few coaches better at reinforcing defensive concepts than José Bordalás. “He connects you. It puts it in your head. Very hard training, gym sessions, he weighs you every day… And, whether you like it or not, he makes you a strong team. It is very difficult to beat us. All their teams compete. All their teams are up,” he maintains. And he adds: “I’m going to give you an example. Last year we were in a delicate situation. And, when he arrived, I thought: ‘We are saved.’ He plugs you in. And he has proven it.”
On Aleñá’s path he once once more crosses the Barcelona of his idol Xavi Hernández (16.15, Movistar LaLiga). “From the outside I can assure you that the criticism of Barça is very unfair,” the footballer defends the Barça coach. And Xavi precisely questioned his way of defending in the last Getafe-Barcelona match, at the Coliseum. “He asked me what we were doing. We know each other, he trusts me.” Getafe is a new challenge for Xavi; Barça, an old challenge for Aleñá. However, there is nothing that moves him from a new spell, this time less harmful: Madrid. “I moved downtown. Near Nuevos Ministerios. “It is a spectacular city.”
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