The new signing of Barça will fulfill the dream he expressed in an interview for SPORT in August 2010
“If the opportunity comes to me in the first team, I won’t feel the pressure,” he said thirteen years ago as a subsidiary player
Oriol Romeu is already a Barça footballer. The club made his signing official this Wednesday before traveling to the United States for the start of the tour, where he will make himself available to Xavi Hernández’s project with the illusion of a youth. The same one he expressed in August 2010, when, at just 18 years old, he gave an interview to SPORT in his hometown, Ulldeconain the Montsià region, the last one before reaching the Valencian Country.
SPORT went there to have a long conversation with the man who had just won promotion to the Second Division with Luis Enrique’s Barça B. Romeu already dreamed big, Pep Guardiola was in charge of the first team, Touré Yayá had just left the club and Sergio Busquets kept the position of midfielder.
The man from Ulldecona had not yet made his debut with the first team, something he ended up doing later, although in an almost anecdotal way. However, he had everything very clear: “Of course I would like to (debut) and it would be a dream come true, but Busquets, so young, has a long way to go.. Without Touré, there are a little more opportunities, but we’ll see”. A statement that, thirteen years later, makes sense. In fact, he was not hiding: “Following in Busquets’ footsteps would be a dream”, he correctly predicted. Late But I’m right after all.
Oriol Romeu, after being runner-up in Europe, poses for SPORT at his home in Ulldecona
| IGNASI PAREDES
About the way in which he had to understand his position, very little has changed since then: “It is a position in which, if you are not sure… A lot of balls go through there and you have to be sure and show it to the team. If you miss a lot, the team loses balls, they don’t recover. It is an important position and in which you must be regular“. A whole declaration of intent, almost a style book verbalized by the then very young footballer.
No pressure
If anyone doubts the pressure that being important in the Blaugrana first team can put on Oriol Romeu, they can rest easy because the man from Ulldecona was already very clear about it in 2010, so after his experience in England and Girona, even more so: “If I get the chance in the first team, I won’t feel the pressure. I think it would be nice and I would go out and play the same. Although the level goes up, you always have to look for the same. It’s still a football field and you have to play eleven against eleven”. An inappropriate maturity for a youth.
Oriol Romeu, at the Ulldecona castle in a 2010 report
| IGNASI PAREDES
By the way, Oriol Romeu then explained his move from Espanyol to Barça, that it was never traumatic and that, deep down, it was he himself who caused it because he did not feel comfortable in the blue and white team: “I was twelve years old and was very burned when Barça opened my eyes”. He was tired of “having to make so many trips. I trained two days a week with Espanyol and stayed overnight in Barcelona, apart from the games. Then I returned to Ulldecona. At La Masia it was something else. At Espanyol I had I had to make a very big effort and I ended up having a bad time”.
Love for Barcelona
In addition, the footballer had always professed his love for the colors of Barça: “It has always been my team. In the town almost all of us are from Barça and it is a feeling that I carry deep inside”. A feeling that has lasted for the thirteen years prior to fulfilling his dream, both during his time in the Premier, as well as during his year at Girona.