1995   
     
I joined Atletico de Madrid at the age of eleven, that’s the lowest age team there. My coach was Manolo Rangel. I have especially fond memories of that time, thanks to Manolo. Training was a game, and the matches were fun, that was the part of my life when I most enjoyed playing football.

Shortly after joining the team we went on a trip to Belgium, it was my first away trip, I was overwhelmed. The hotel, my team-mates, everything about that trip was amazing. I was living my dream, or at least that’s how it seemed to me back then.

When you belong to a club like Atletico de Madrid at that age you live for it, it’s indescribably exciting, although I couldn’t let myself forget that football was still just a hobby for me. For my family it was a nightmare: I say a nightmare because of the effort the four of them put in so as I could become a footballer- although that wasn’t the goal then because no one knew, not one us of even imagined I’d get to where I am today.

 
My dad had to leave work in the afternoons to take me to training in Orcasitas, and then go back to work in Fuenlabrada by train, other times my mother took me to the training ground on the bus and on the train, whether it was raining or if it was baking hot she’d always take me. She used to say ‘if you ever get tired you don’t have to go anymore, don’t feel obliged to keep on with the football.’ But I never got tired of it. My brother and sister had to take me to training sometimes, too. While I was playing, they’d be in the stands studying, in the different grounds they had to take me to.

Without my family I never would have got into the first team, I never would have even been a footballer.

1997   
     
I began the Junior A season at 13. People from outside Madrid joined the team. I remember players like Manu, Molinero and Sergio Torres, who won the European under-16 championship with me. Football was still a past-time for me, but I knew what it meant to be part of an organisation like Atletico de Madrid, and I was 13.

It was my third year of football with Atleti. My arrival coincided with the double year, and that made me even more proud to be part of the club. In just a handful of years I’ve lived through the double, relegation, promotion, happiness and disappointment as a player and a fan…I’ve seen people of all age crying in the stands, I’ve even seen the fans leave the ground happy even though the team have lost!

They’re happy to have seen Atleti, their team. It’s different from with teams like Barcelona or Real Madrid, whose fans are only interested in winning, Atleti fans follow their feelings more than the results, we like to enjoy ourselves, have a good time every Sunday, then if you win, all the better. That’s the way of thinking I got from my Granddad, the Atletico way.