Bernabé Barragán: «My time at Atleti was one of the best of my life» | OneFootball

Atlético Madrileño visit Juventud Torremolinos this Sunday at 12:00 at Pozuelo, in what will be matchday 35 of Group 2 of the Primera Federación. Both teams come into the game with different objectives: the red-and-whites are looking to stay at the top of the table, while the hosts are eager to pick up 3 vital points in the fight for survival. 

In the days leading up to the clash, we spoke with Bernabé Barragán, goalkeeper for the Andalusian side and former keeper for Atlético’s reserve team, as a preview to the match. 

You picked up an important point last weekend in Tarazona, with a clean sheet…

We managed to take a point away from home. It’s true that we were coming off a negative run, with three straight defeats, and in the end the way you break that streak is by picking up points. Maybe it can feel like too little because it was a direct rival but in the end, away at their place, I think the point and also the fact that we kept a clean sheet when we were coming off several defeats, has to be given the importance it deserves. There are still four matches left and we’ll see what the table has in store for us, but I think that in the end, a point against a direct rival is not really a bad result. 

In one year you’ve gone from playing in the Greek Super League to the Primera Federación. What motivated you to join the project?

As you say, I went to Greece last season, at the start of the campaign, and I started out playing everything there in the Greek Super League, with clubs of great stature and history. It’s a very beautiful and exciting league, one that all the fans live with great passion, but in February I had the bad luck of suffering a serious injury. I tore my ACL and meniscus, it’s an injury that needs between eight and ten months of recovery before you can get back with the group and try to regain rhythm.

I got injured in February, and in June I came back to Spain because I terminated my contract with them,  and from June until Christmas I was with my recovery coach and my physio, recovering on my own at home. Then in January the opportunity with Torremolinos came up, close to home, with the aim of getting my rhythm back and being able to compete again. I also came here for that, to get my feel back, to continue with the rehabilitation and, if necessary, to help out whenever needed, and that’s been my role in these last few matches.

You’ve had minutes in the last 4 matchdays and got your first clean sheet. In terms of confidence, how do you think it can influence the end of the season?

It has to give us confidence and security. Three matchdays ago we changed coach, we’re working with a new coaching staff and in the end that’s also an important factor. The fact that  the group has spent the whole season working with one coach and then changes him in the final stretch is not easy in terms of grasping the idea, it’s not easy to adapt the new ideas the manager brings with the ones the team already has, which it has been working on throughout the season, and I think that’s something that takes time.

We got our first point last week and it was against a direct rival, as we said before, with a clean sheet. It has to give us confidence that we’re doing things well and that, even though next Sunday we have a very, very difficult opponent, there are still four matches left and I’m sure that the team, if it keeps working this way and doing things like this, will be very close to achieving the objective.

This weekend you face the team you played for for 4 seasons. What memories do you have from that period?

A lot of memories. It’s also true that I still have many friends there, although in the end, because of age, they had all moved on, they’re no longer with the reserves and have progressed in their careers. But even so, there are some in the first team with whom I still have the memory of having shared very special moments. I was there for four years and in three of them I was the third goalkeeper for the first team. So in the end you go through a lot of situations with them.

From the current squad, today I remember Koke, Griezmann, and even the same coaching staff who were there too, and I remember it very fondly as one of the most beautiful periods I’ve been able to experience as a footballer.

What was day-to-day life like with the first team?

It was a very professional day-to-day environment. In the end you realize that the people who have succeeded in football and achieved so many good results for so many years did so because they are truly professional, and every day, in every sense, they approach their work at 200%. In training, the intensity, the attention to detail the coach always demanded, the standards, the fact of giving nothing away…

It’s no coincidence that someone is there or that some players can perform at such a high level for so long, and if it’s hard to reach the elite, then staying at the very top of world football for so long, as Atlético Madrid are right now, both in terms of players and coaching staff, is no coincidence. There is a lot of work and discipline behind it, something that in the world of football, sometimes, not everyone has. 

Is Simeone as demanding as people say?

Day to day, he pushes you as if you were competing, I mean, there isn’t a match, there isn’t a training session that’s a bit more relaxed, a bit calmer, where there isn’t something that hasn’t been planned with competing in mind or preparing for the next game, and I think that’s also key and part of his success. From the time we started preseason there in Los Ángeles de San Rafael, I remember that we did four training sessions in one day. Imagine what that was like and the level of demand he had. It’s true that they weren’t four two-hour training sessions each, but they were short spells at 200%.

As an anecdote, and to give you an idea of the level of demand there could be or still could be in one of their training sessions today, I remember that when I trained with them they even brought up some reserve players just for when we played small-sided games in training, so they could help feed balls in and there would be no recovery time. Not losing that intensity and having that level of training demand which in the end gives you an extra edge when it comes to competing. They’re small details that maybe other coaches or others in the training world might not attach importance to, but he cared a lot about them right down to that point, and in the end just look at the career he’s having and everything he’s achieving with the club. It’s incredible everything that goes on behind the scenes.

You shared a dressing room with players of the caliber of the Hernández brothers, Monsalve, Iván Sánchez… did you feel they were going to go far in football?

The ones who play for Atlético Madrileño, as we used to call it, are people chosen from all over Spain. They have the best from Andalusia, Catalonia, Galicia… They have the ability to choose quality, so practically all the players we had in that reserve side had a lot of quality, just like the players we’re going to face next Sunday do.

What do you need, besides having that quality, to build a career, in this case, as you said, an important one or one that allows you to play for teams with weight at European level? Well, for the opportunity to come and for you to be ready for it. In Lucas’s case, it came, and for his brother Theo it came a little later too, but the fact that only a few names have come to light and had that fortune doesn’t mean the others weren’t capable, or that technically they didn’t have the level to do it.

I’d say that Atlético de Madrid’s academy is one of the best in Spain and, of course, also at European level, and it has been doing things very well. You only have to look at the table right now, where they’re fighting for promotion. From this Sunday onward I’ll wish them all the luck in the world, and hopefully they can achieve their objective.

Which player surprised you the most during your entire time at the club?

I didn’t expect Theo Hernández to have the career he’s had. It’s true that I saw him very young, and physically he looked like a powerhouse, but of course, in the end, the doors football and life open for you as the years go by are impossible to predict. But I think his career has been exponential. Maybe everyone had their focus on his brother, his brother Lucas, but perhaps that also gave him extra strength to say  “yes, my brother is very good, but I’m very good too,” and it helped him and served as motivation to work and build the spectacular career he has had, with both brothers now playing for top teams on the world stage.

You spent 4 years in the reserve team, more than usual at those kinds of clubs. Why?

When you’re somewhere you like, where you’re treated well and you’re happy, I’ve always tried to hang on a little longer before making the decision to take the next step. In my case I was there for four years, and in my last season with them I had the bad luck of injuring my shoulder. I had to undergo surgery, just like what happened to Oblak, it happened to me a few months later and I had to go under the knife. After that season we decided to take the step to Tarragona, which was in the Second Division, and make the jump to professional football because there comes a point when you have to try to build a career. You can wait for opportunities in the reserves, but you know the first-team players are very good, very competitive. If you see that moment of opportunity, luck, and timing isn’t close to arriving, you have to take another path.

In my case, I’m a goalkeeper, and since reserve-team registered players can compete until the age of 25, that usually gives you two extra years compared to outfield players [23], who do have to break through earlier. I think there at Madrileño you also have a player who, for example, couldn’t play for the first team with a reserve-team registration and who is having a very good season –Arnau Ortiz– and well, in the end those are the decisions that get made.

What did you learn during your entire time as a red-and-white?

Above all, from the first team, seeing the professionalism with which they approached day-to-day life, seeing the seriousness and the importance they gave to every detail. I think I shared a dressing room with people like Godín, Gabi, Koke… I could name so many players who were very important but who also marked a before and after in what Atleti is, not only as a club but as a club identity. That comes through a lot of hard work every day. I tried to absorb all those good habits they carried out daily, and I think that’s what has helped me the most.

Beyond competing, beyond maybe technically improving some things or others by training so much with both Oblak and Moyá since I shared a great many training sessions with them, I take more from the day-to-day and the way they approached things. Because I think mentality is fundamental in any job nowadays, but even more so, if you’ll allow me to say it, in football. You’re under so much pressure, such high demands, and I think that’s very important. In that time, I think that’s what I learned the most from it.

The club keeps growing year after year. How do you see it from the outside?

With great pride, knowing that maybe with the first team I wasn’t able to contribute my little grain of sand in official matches, but I was there for four years, pushing and helping however I could.  I think it’s something very beautiful. You could see it, and all Atlético fans know it, that the moment the club was managed a little better, it could grow exponentially.

I could also give you an example from myself, because I’m from Seville. It’s a similar case, though maybe not as significant: Betis are doing it the same way. We’re seeing the growth Spanish football is having when clubs are run by good executives. I’m really delighted with the new stadium they have, although deep down we all miss the Calderón because we know it had a special vibe that perhaps the Metropolitano still doesn’t have to this day. But everything the club is achieving is incredible, in such a short time, and we’re all going to pray that this year they can put the cherry on top, finally heal that wound we all still carry from that Champions League final and hopefully we can win the title.

How would you define Fernando Torres’s Atlético Madrileño?

I’d say they’re very solid. For a reserve side, they have a very clear playing identity, with a world-class coach and when someone with that career and experience is managing a team, it’s very difficult for things to go badly. But it’s a team with many different aspects to its game, very complete both in attack and defence, and away from home they also compete very, very well.

It’s true that our ground is a bit peculiar because it’s a little smaller than normal, and maybe the kind of football you can play here isn’t the same as what can be played at bigger stadiums where there’s more space. But I think Atlético de Madrid are a very complete team, with very good attacking players and also a very good defensive setup. It’s no coincidence that they’re up there and I think the match we’re going to have next Sunday will be very closely contested. 

How do you think they can be hurt?

These kinds of matches, and with the added factor of this pitch, are decided by details. Set pieces, transitions after losing possession that can lead to counterattacks because in the end our stadium is a small ground where all the players are very close together and it’s difficult for spaces to appear or for teams to have the chance to build long spells of possession and find passes between the lines. On top of the point we’re at in the season, with everyone wanting the points, these games usually come down to set pieces, some transition moment, or an individual mistake.

What differences do you notice between the Primera Federación and the old Segunda B?

There’s a big difference in terms of, for one thing, infrastructure, I think everything is much more organized and  clearly defined. Secondly, by reducing the number of teams, the level of the division has gone up; there are only 40 teams. If you look at both groups, in most of them there are teams that could practically be competing in the Second Division or that were there only a few years ago and that have a very important fanbase behind them and are major clubs within our football at national level. I think it was a great decision to leave it at 40 teams and split it into two groups.

Collectively, survival is the goal. What is your personal objective for the rest of the season?

To get fully back into it, regain rhythm, and recover good feelings after being out with a serious injury and going so many months without playing. I also needed a bit of time and adaptation to feel comfortable again. Individually, my objective is to feel like I did before the injury again, to find that level I was showing and that’s what I’m working for. But of course, the team objective comes first, being able to stay in the division and for Torremolinos to be competing next year in the Primera Federación. 

A promise if you achieve survival?

I haven’t made one yet because there are still 12 points left to play for, so I’m keeping it to myself for now. Maybe for the last two matches because there’s still a bit of room, but well, when I have one, I’ll tell you.

To conclude, from Atlético Sport we would like to sincerely thank Juventud Torremolinos and, especially, their communications department for all their help in arranging the interview.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here.