Spain goalkeeper Joan García was interviewed by Mundo Deportivo during the national team training camp. This is the third part of the interview.
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You won a title with the team in your first season, but under the widespread external media hype, the Champions League seems to have become the ultimate goal for the team. Given the overwhelming discussion and focus on the Champions League in the football world, does this add extra pressure to your locker room?
No, it's obvious that winning the Champions League is indeed a major ambition for us, but the domestic league title, the Copa del Rey, and the Spanish Super Cup are also our set goals. Ultimately, I believe our current squad has the solid strength to remain highly competitive in all competitions and strive for all titles.
Of course, while maintaining our ambition, we are also keenly aware of how difficult it will be to win all of this. But I see that the entire team is highly motivated. The Champions League is indeed a set goal, but I think the whole team absolutely cannot let it become a tense obsession, because once a goal turns into a blind obsession, it often leads to negative backlash. However, having said that, this is indeed a great, ambitious, and challenging goal, and our entire team is full of passion and desire to face and meet this challenge.
Another thing that is completely different from last season is that in this year's domestic league, one of Barcelona's core direct rivals—namely Real Madrid—has Mourinho at the helm. Now the general media environment in LaLiga has become far more tense and confrontational than ever before, with disputes and criticisms about referee decisions circulating everywhere. As I bluntly perceive it, the entire artificially created environment seems dirtier and more turbid, and the outside world seems to be making a mess of everything. Do you in the locker room also intuitively feel this tense and confrontational atmosphere from outside? Do you live in this kind of emotion daily? I specifically ask this because Barcelona's locker room itself has a very strong and pure pro-Barcelona sentiment. I wonder if your psychological feelings about this year's environment are completely different from last season's?
In fact, I believe that for all the noise and distractions from the outside world, our entire team must learn to actively detach and isolate ourselves, and completely gather and focus all our attention on our own work. Because everyone in our team knows better than anyone else that as long as we maintain excellent form and meticulously carry out our tasks, then all other disputes and any actions or media noise from outside the locker room will not be able to shake or affect us in the slightest.
Therefore, I think it would be a huge mistake if we expended too much energy on closely monitoring these external disputes, especially within the team's locker room. Of course, in the external public world outside the locker room, how people view and discuss things is another matter; but within our locker room, I believe we must not overly concern ourselves with these external disturbances and trivial matters.
Let's turn the topic back to the Spain national team level. The national team is clearly a core and crucial stage. This time, you have rejoined the team with a new role within the squad, but in the current Spain team, the competition for the goalkeeper position includes three of the world's top goalkeepers, right?
Yes, that's absolutely correct. I believe this high level of competition fully demonstrates and highlights the excellent results and great achievements of Spain's youth development system in goalkeeper training. Moreover, this time Álvaro Valles (Real Betis goalkeeper) has also joined the national team. He is also an extremely strong and top-notch goalkeeper, and he is fully proving this with his actions on the field. I feel genuinely happy and proud to be in the same locker room with such outstanding goalkeepers, training side-by-side daily, and continuously improving through our interactions.
Everyone can also genuinely feel the extremely harmonious and deep bond among you goalkeepers—for example, when Unai Simón accepted his award at the Ballon d'Or ceremony, he specifically dedicated his speech and honor to you, his fellow goalkeepers. What was your reaction to that at the time? How do you motivate each other and help each other improve through daily interactions in training?
The relationship between us is truly excellent. I believe that ultimately, this goes far beyond football on the pitch; off the field, it's more about genuine character between people and the human bonds you form in life. We have built an extremely good, sincere, and deep friendship.
I can honestly tell you, whether it was David Raya or me, when we saw Unai achieve this honor (Yashin Trophy), our excitement and joy were almost as if we had won the trophy ourselves. So, I think this attitude of genuinely wishing each other well vividly illustrates our character and magnanimity. And on the competitive level of the pitch, we always demand the absolute maximum and most rigorous standards from ourselves. Everyone gives their all in every save, and this kind of intense, positive daily competition and effort will naturally show tremendous power in real matches.
One last question, we won't take up any more of your valuable time. The national team is about to face two extremely important and critical matches, especially later when we will play against a strong opponent, England, at the Metropolitano Stadium. The team's goal is to go all out for maximum points and secure a strong progression to the knockout stage as group winners, right? Is this currently your primary goal?
Yes, there's no doubt about it. The goal is clear and specific. Our current primary core objective is to win these two matches, continue to advance confidently into the next knockout round in the ongoing Nations League campaign, and maintain our unbeaten record. I believe that remaining undefeated is ultimately also a very wonderful and proud achievement, and a very inspiring and worthwhile goal for the entire team to strive for.
Thank you very much for the interview, Joan, and good luck in the upcoming matches!
Thank you very much!