Carvajal's maturity before his last? train with Spain
Dani Carvajal is not Mister Sympathy (from the outside). He recognizes it, who keeps the smiling version for those very close to him, which he has, although in public he looks less and less.. Lately, knowing that he has been under the spotlight for his opinions on the women's team, even less. At 32 years old, he knows very well what he said and how he said it, among other things because it is something thoughtful, there is no immature person behind Spain's right back, much less thoughtless.. It happens that today, in 2023, in Spain, saying according to what things carries with it consequences that not everyone is willing to assume.. In the heterogeneous collective that is the men's soccer team, there are very few who do so and who give their opinion, without embellishment, about what happened to Rubiales and Jenni Hermoso. Carvajal is one of them.
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He feels with the authority that comes with 10 years on the team.. It debuted in September 2014, after the World Cup in Brazil, with the help of Del Bosque.. But it was not until this season that he truly became what he promised: a top-level right back.. While he was adding European Cups with Madrid, he saw trains passing by with Spain: he missed the 2016 Euro Cup due to being injured in the Champions League final, and he arrived at Russia 2018 stiff for the same reason, although Lopetegui did take him. He didn't go to the 2021 Euro Cup either, also due to injury, and he passed through Qatar without pain or glory, like the rest of the team.
He has played 36% of the games since 2014, and has almost always been out due to injury.. However, until last Thursday, he had played everything since September, and Luis de la Fuente is delighted with him. Because of his football level, yes, but also because of the detail he had just before the final of the Nations League, last June against Croatia. He was a substitute, Navas played, but he spoke in the locker room, just before going out on the field. “I have been lucky to play in many finals, and to win them, and always as a starter. I think this is the first final in which I am a substitute, but I want to win it more than any other, because winning with your team's shirt is incredible, but winning with this shirt…”, and he grabbed the shield, drowned in the screams of his companions. “I want good footballers and good people,” says the coach. With Carvajal he has both.
If nothing strange happens, he will be the starter in the Euro Cup, and will be able to put the culmination of that irregular decade, straightened out, from the point of view of injuries, since he works with Itziar González, a 'guru', specialist in physiogenomics, who changed her diet from top to bottom, prohibited gluten and forced her to eat carbohydrates, according to what she herself said in an interview in MARCA, where she joked: “What I didn't do with my children I did with him: he “I called to ask him if he had eaten everything.”. Carvajal, a good student, had eaten it all and today, happy, having his brother-in-law, Joselu, on the team and in the national team, he enjoys a maturity that was unthinkable not so long ago. For now tonight, against Georgia, he will continue adding to obtain the best percentage of games played in a year with the national team. It's never too late.