February 26 News The Athletic UK Brentford with team reporter Jay Harris
The dressing room of the Little Bees exclusively interviewed the main goalkeeper of the Bees, the Spanish goalkeeper David Raya.
“I turned down two offers for a contract extension, one from last year and one from January this year. Those were not offers we wanted, that’s all I can say.
I want to focus on the game and I don’t want to think too much about my future.
I have a contract with Brentford so I would like to see it through, but you never know what will happen in the summer.
Maybe the club wants to sell, maybe not, maybe I want to stay.
I want to focus on football and see what happens.
”
“Brentford will decide what I’m worth and if there’s a club willing to pay, so be it. I’m not worried about that, it’s not my responsibility.
I have big ambitions, I want to play in Europe and fight to win titles.
I want to fight to win the European Championship.
I believe that I can participate in this kind of top competition.
”
The second part of the exclusive interview is about his upbringing and the experience of the Spanish national team.
“When I came to England I was actually a bit smaller than I am now. I used to be 180cm and now I’m 186cm. We were talking about 11 years ago when a traditional goalkeeper was probably over 6ft 3in. I
My height is less than 6 feet, so I am very worried about my future.
People who care about me saving crosses can see the stats, my interception rate for crosses is really good because I can see where the ball is going to land.
That’s why my height doesn’t matter so much.
”
“And in sports, there’s nothing more important than the World Cup,” he said, “so it’s very gratifying for me and my family that I get selected for the national team, especially because my career was not really that important.
Easy. I’m not one of those genius goalkeepers who become famous at a young age and do it overnight, so I have to work hard to get where I am now.”
“Playing at club level, you can have two or three bad games, but the coach trusts you and will give you another chance to recover,” Raya said. “The national team is completely different: if you are not in form
, the coach will not draft you. With the new coach De La Fuente, I have to try to get him to draft me again, you always have to prove yourself in this regard.”