It is begged. Quite. After finishing training, an hour passes with the fisios. He knows that his explosion has been later than usual and does not plan to return to the exit box. That is why he takes care of his body with a lot of care. Appears with … A black pants with more sporty appearance than a cowboy, and a hooded sweatshirt of the same color. The shoes, and the socks are also black: «I pass the fashion. I just want to go comfortable and that’s why I’m going in tracksuit all day ». It is the Romanian Andrei Ratiu (Aiud, June 20, 1998), a side that barely grants interviews, which fights half Europe and that this Sunday (16.15 hours, Movistar) visits the Bernabéu with its Rayo Vallecano.
“Does any Aiud remember?”
“I was born there, but I’m really from a town next door, from Unitea, which has barely 4,000 inhabitants.” I remember very little because I only lived in Romania until I was 6 years old. I have a friend, but with little relationship and practically through networks.
“Why are you going to Spain with 6 years?”
“My parents left when I was 4 years old, and we stayed to join my little brother and I with our grandparents.” They went to Aguaviva, a town in Teruel of only 500 inhabitants, to look for work. When my father already had the papers we left my brother and me with them.
“What do your parents do?”
“My father is a mason and my waitress mother.” Hard and humble professions.
“You could now withdraw them.” Don’t you want?
“They have always wanted to be independent and have always wanted to work for our future.” Therefore, in my head it has always been returning that effort. Look, my mother has suffered three cancers and a few operations, the last two months ago, and not only has she not let me retire, but now, she is still with low, she is crazy to work because she drops the house on her. She has never surrendered despite suffering three cancers and that is the example they have transmitted to us and that I follow.
“When you are a child, you don’t understand many things, how do you help a mother who passes three times because of such a serious illness?”
“It is difficult.” We were small, but how little we knew is that we had to be by supporting her and that she had to listen to doctors. Now, it is also true that it has been difficult for her because we are a family of three boys, my brother, my father and I, and sometimes it was hard to understand her. Perhaps, some female empathy was missing by his side.
“Romanians are very familiar.”
-Yeah. Since childhood even. I was a childly calm and shy, well as now, and I just wanted to be with the ball and have fun with my friends and family. A very closed circle of trust, so I find it hard to interact with people who do not know much.
“What do you not playing football?”
“I was playing the play a lot, but since I have been a father, fifteen months ago, almost all my time is for my daughter.” And in a few months a second child will arrive, who is going to be a child.
“In these times, with 25 years it is not normal to be a father.”
“I’m with my girl since 16, so when I had something stable in football, we decided it was the time.” Nor has life changed much. Luckily, she is good and sleeps and eats well. And the life of a footballer is very boring.
“Why does that say?”
“Because it is a total and repetitive dedication.” You have to take care of yourself, sleep and eat well. And if you go out for dinner, at most one night a week. In the end you spend a lot of time at home trying to take care of you. So my life is my daughter, some series, the play if I can and little else. Well, and football. The truth is that I have fried and, I am not going to lie to her, she ends up putting a series on the iPad.
“Was another plan in life in case the football did not come out?”
“I played everything to a letter.” There was no plan B. In fact, when I already started training with the youth of Villarreal, with 16 years, I decided to leave my studies and bet on football. It has cost me a little more to get where I am now, because my explosion has been with 24, but I always thought I would be prepared.
—It is side, but as a child I played a striker, extreme and medicent.
-Yeah. I started playing with 6 years in the Aguaviva FC Football team. At that age, the nearest football team, the Andorra de Teruel, was 30 kilometers and my parents could not take me for the issue of their schedules at work. Then, with 8 years, my mother could already leave at 5:00 p.m. and the fry training in the Andorra de Teruel began at 18.00, so she could take me. With 10 years is when Villarreal calls me and there we leave the whole family.
“Are she telling me that her parents left their jobs and they all went to Castellón to start again?”
-Yeah. They also bet on my letter. It was a brave decision, because I reached the child’s C of Villarreal and to know what came from there. And it was also hard. The first two years in Castellón we live in our savings because neither my mother nor my father managed to find a job and we did not know anyone who could help us. To pay 200 euros for rent in Aguaviva we pay 600 in Castellón and, of course, the money is over in two years. So my father, through a friend of his, went to Madrid to work. I was there Monday through Friday and the weekend came. So he spent two years until he achieved work in Castellón. Then my mother did it too. And when I already went to Juveniles del Villarreal, I also added money.
“He was eleven there, with a season of assignment to the ado of the Hague, but without much luck.
—It was the first time I left home, I wasn’t with my family and although my girlfriend came after three weeks, we both suffered a lot. People had dinner at six in the afternoon and you were going to a restaurant at seven and was already closed. In addition, it was done at night very early and I was accustomed to the sun of Spain. I didn’t just adapt and I barely played 16 games. Then, I returned to Villarreal, the year that the Europa League won, but I didn’t play anything and had no offers. But I went with Romania to Tokyo games, I did well and I get the opportunity of Huesca. There were two good seasons.
“He has also had it simple at Rayo Vallecano.”
“I had in 2023 and the initial months of that first season were hard.” As soon as I play, only the cup matches, and I aimed to go to the Eurocup with Romania. But without playing it was not going to be simple. Then the 12th day arrives, the match against Real Madrid, I get a very good defense against Vinicius and as the Madrid matches have a lot of impact, people realize what type of player I am. There changes everything.
“What day he made a peak of 35.6 km/h.
—In the team, in a match against Kosovo, I have a 36.2. And a month ago, in front of Barça, I think I reached a 35.7, but there are faster players than me and there are many conditions in a football race, such as guidance, the situation of the field in which it occurs, the melee … Let’s see, if I start making a 100 -meter race without ball, I think Mbappé and Vinicius would win me. I am fast, but I do not consider the fastest. It may be a very high beak, but what counts is to hold the speed throughout the race.
—It has a contract until June 2028 and a termination clause of 25 million euros (50% of a future sale is from Villarreal). I say it because Media Europe gives cakes for you. Barcelona, Atlético, Leverkusen, Rome, Tottenham, Atalanta …
“Sucly, I’m very focused on ray and selection.” We have the objective of the permanence that is not yet made. Look what happened to Las Palmas last year.
“Don’t go through the branches.” Its price is a bargain and is the fashion side.
“For me 25 million is a lot of money … First we will have to see if there are offers, but I have always liked the league and I want to continue playing here.”
“Is that a point in favor for a possible interest of Spanish teams.” Do you talk about this with your family?
-No. In addition, my father is from Steaua, my mother only sees my games, the team does not care, and my brother, although it is a bit of Barça, does not influence my decisions.
“Take me from Romania.” I am attention to his powerful feeling with the selection, although he only lived there six years.
“My father always wanted it to go with Romania and speak Romanian.” It is normal that he would like something like that for me. Now I speak well, but from 6 to 17 I did not step on Romania. At home I was talking at times with my father, but with my brother and my mother we communicated in Spanish.
—Your love for the selection, he impregnated it well, as even to paint his electric blue hair.
– (laughs) It is true that I already made me wicks and strange things in my hair, but that was a promise. As I said before, as I did not play in lightning I saw me out of the Eurocup and told my brother that, if I finally went, I would put my hair blue. And a promise is always fulfilled. At first it cost me to see me like this. The people of Romania wrote to me and told me what he had done to me, but with the passage of the matches he ended up like me and even in the stands you saw some Romanian fans with blue hair too. From there I already had Sonic’s nickname.
#Andrei #Ratiu #mother #waitress #suffered #cancers #withdraw
