Álvaro García: “Reyes was my idol and a God for us in Utrera. His accident was a shock for all the people”

He has been in Vallecas but Álvaro García (Utrera, 1992) has not lost the Andalusian accent. Miss the Easter week As a good ‘capillita’, he remembers his idol José Antonio Reyesthe work days of your Carpenter Father and keeps the feet on the ground in the middle of the League galaxy. The end is the spark of the surprising ray of Íñigo Pérezthat this Sunday threatens the Bernabéu.

Between Andoni Iraola before and Íñigo Pérez now, the ray is having a good time. They are in Europe.

The two have the same idea. Íñigo was a second with Andoni and is the same way of playing and has worked us. They are very good. Andoni is being seen in England and Íñigo is going to be, because everything works and everything has it super controlled. It is very heavy in everything, it makes us a lot of intensity and it will be great.

MUMIN, CISS, Ratiu, Ntenka … are half unknown that end up giving an extraordinary version. Because?

Most of us from second, very hungry. If you files an equal star, do not yield the same because we have to run like crazy, press, be intense … and you have to be humble too. Here we go to the physio and missing machinery, things are missing. Having people who come from the bottom, which has cost him to arrive, I think it is key. I have gone from Cádiz to Ferrol by bus without problem, I now put a bus trip and it doesn’t cost me.

In 2018, you became the most expensive signing in the history of lightning.

I cost five million. And the first year it cost me a lot, I saw that I was not yielding and in fact I had to get away from social networks. It was a responsibility for the price they had paid. A pressure. And until we ascend to Primera, I did not take that away from my head.

In this league of stars there are also many normal people, right?

I think so. Most are normal. We do our normal life, we have children, we take them to school, we will see our parents and then then, we play football in the First Division, but it is the only thing we do differently. We are privileged.

Has it always been little and fast?

Always, always. Tiny and fast. The stretch never arrived (laughs). As a child already, the fastest team, the fastest class … always.

Do you like football?

Less and less. Every time I see much less. Nothing. For example, I didn’t see Real Madrid – Atlético. I take advantage of other things. I am all day with football, football and football and exhausts, saturate a little. When they put videos of other teams the classmates laugh at me because we see a goal of someone, I say “what a goal” and they are discouraged. “Didn’t you see it?” They tell me. I prefer to see other things with my children or play with them.

Do you like less for your work or by football?

A little of each. Football is increasingly weird, less and less is understood. It is more physical, there is more intensity, the rivals study you more because there are millions of sites to see matches … Before there were 5 or 6 games at the same time and you elected one. It is different, everything is at hand.

Do you train more with 32 years than with 22?

Yes, because now I have to take care of more too. As I have trained with Andoni or Íñigo I don’t remember ever trained. If you are not well, you are screwed. I have a personal coach and a nutritionist, because I have always eaten fatal. He was the typical one who did not like vegetables and that put all fried potatoes. I’ve never been fat, because it’s genetics, but I ate very bad. So when we ascended first with Iraola I looked for a nutritionist, and I continue with her. I get less injured, it shows a lot. I ate cookies, juices of these of can, which were all sugar, snack a snack, ate with Coca-Cola … My mother. At first it was Chungo, I had a fatal, but fatal, fatal. I was looking forward to eating, and in the end you adapt.

Some chocolate.

Chocolate loses me. From time to time it has to fall because otherwise I go crazy (laughs). There are days that with the children you say … I killed them both, and you eat a little to endure (laughs).

What is Utrera for you?

It is everything to me, it has given me everything. It is the only team in which I was a child, I have my family and my family there and I would like to return in the future to live. We are doing a house in the town, my wife is from there, that we met at school and we continue, and now that I see children with the lightning shirt for Utrera fills me with pride. The normal thing is that they are from Betis or Sevilla.

Up to what age was in the town?

I have done all my life there, since I started at the Soccer School and in the Children’s Center until the last year of Juveniles. I have never been in the Betis quarry or in that of Sevilla or had played in a youth division of honor, we were always in normal categories. In Juveniles I went to Ceuta to play it, then I returned to the first team of the Utrera in Primera Andaluza and then to San Fernando, Granada, Racing and Cádiz, where everything became a little more professional.

Is it there when he realizes that he can live from football?

I realized when I ascended with Cádiz from Second B to Second, until then I had played four games in First with Granada, but it was a specific thing. From Granada I was given to Racing, we descended to Second B and then I made the preseason with Granada B, even with the first team, they didn’t love me. And I got the option of Cádiz in Second B. I was 21 or 22 years old and I thought ‘Well, now what?’ I was assigned by Granada and I didn’t feel important. Until Álvaro Cervera arrived, which changed my life a little. We ascended to Second, I did it well that year and I had some offers, even from China, and there I saw that, I could live on this.

Did you start thinking about money?

No, because I hadn’t played first, which was what I wanted, I wanted to prove that it was worth. And I get the ray, which happened wrong at the beginning because it was not a starter and then Andoni (Iraola) that marks me a lot. And this is my seventh season in lightning.

He has not lost his accent.

No, I’m more Andalusian than … (laughs). I never want to lose it. And in fact my son was born in Seville, but he is more Madrid. He is a child-pandemic.

Was he born in 2020?

Yes, he was born in June of that year, we had everything organized to be born in Seville and above during our summer vacation, but suddenly they confined us and it was a bit chaos. My wife left because the childbirth took everything in Seville, they made me a paper to go down, the boy was born there, I went up to Madrid the next day because the league was restarted and two weeks came up and the child. Always with PCRS.

Was scary?

Yes, for the moment of childbirth, for the virus … a lot of fear, because he is a small child, we had to take a thousand care for who approached him, test the whole world to enter home … a little crowded because we did not know how he could affect that virus and there was a lot of fear in general with the theme of the Covid. My parents came to see us, but always with the PCRs. It was crazy.

Do your parents still work?

My father was and is a carpenter. He has not retired. If I were Cristiano Ronaldo yet, but I am not Cristiano Ronaldo (laughs). It is your work.

At the time he had to work with him?

Yes, if the studies were not going very well because they made you go to work. There I realized that I didn’t want to be a carpenter, so I started studying. I saw that life was not mine and I didn’t like it. I made high school while I was in the Utrera, I made the selectivity, I got into the higher degree of physical education and spent a year until I filed for Granada and it was already a bit chaos. Nobody likes to study, right? But at no time I thought he would be a footballer.

You say that it is very Andalusian, very ‘Capillita’?

Yes, much (laughs). In my town you live a lot about Holy Week, I was a child, I was Nazarene, I still in my brotherhood, my son is also aimed … You live a lot. This week has started Lent and at this time I miss being there and living everything closely. When I played in Granada, I was going to my brotherhood in the afternoon.

De Utrera are, among others, Dani Ceballos and José Antonio Reyes. The latter is your idol, right?

Yes, always. It was God for the children of Utrera. When he went to Arsenal, then to Madrid … you saw him in his cars, which was going very much for the town. They say that the Andalusians have a hard time getting out of there because life is lived differently. It was a God for us.

Was he going to see him live?

Yes, he had gone to Seville to see him. And the day I had the accident, I got from Madrid to Cádiz to see him with Extremadura against Cádiz. I was in the ray and the league was over, and as I have many friends there because we square to see the Cádiz-Exteramura. We were on the way to the car and my girlfriend saw the news on the mobile. At first we did not think it would be something so serious, but then we stayed in shock.

Did he have friendship with him?

No, in fact, for example, I saw him for Utrera and I was ashamed to ask for a photo. It was a God. For the people, with what kings meant, it was a tremendous shock. It affects you, above the accident was almost entering Utrera, and every time I pass here I remember everything.

From Utrera to Madrid there is a lot of change.

Yes. Let’s see, from Utrera to Granada it cost me (laughs), but I was two hours. It was difficult from Granada to Santander, for example, that I was on the other end of Spain, a different climate … and in Madrid it was somewhat easier, although I lived very close to the sports city because I needed to be close, having my little town within the big city.