The first floor of the Hyatt Hotel, in the financial center of Doha, is a coming and going of Turkish footballers. Pachuca, the oldest club in Mexico, plays the most important game in its history tonight. A complete final of the Intercontinental Cup against Real Madrid. A unique occasion that includes Madrid native Borja Bastón (32 years old), a striker raised in Atlético’s youth system, who has played for thirteen clubs during his career and who is the only Spaniard on the team. -At what age did you join Atlético? -At four and a half years old, as a goalkeeper. My father was a professional goalkeeper and what you see at home you like to do. But I lasted very little. He told me that the goal was very hard, that there was a lot of suffering, there was a lot of loneliness and only one player played. And, furthermore, when I was little I was very restless and I kept moving around in the goal because I got bored. I was more aware of what was happening off the field than on it, so they started to play me as a winger and then as a forward. My father resolved my life when he told me not to be a goalkeeper. -Who was your father? -Miguel Bastón, who was a goalkeeper for Atlético and Burgos, and then was a goalkeeping coach at Atlético. When I went to England in 2016, he left the club and now he is away from football and enjoying life with my mother. -You in the youth team kept goals falling out of your pockets. -It is true that you scored a lot of goals. My father knows the exact figure, but I don’t remember it. It is an innate sense of smell. In football you can improve many things, but the goal is usually achieved. -Was it a burden to be considered the new Fernando Torres? -It was not a burden. I took the comparison well. Fernando was a reference for all the boys in the quarry. He got out of there and look at the race he did. Since then, anyone who scored goals in the youth team always said that he was like his successor, but I always understood that it was more of a matter for fans and the media. -He debuted with the first team at only 17 years old, on May 15, 2010, in a match against Getafe. But that ended in drama. -The happiest day of my life was the saddest, because instead of remembering it as the day of my debut with the Atlético first team, I remember it as the day I broke my cruciate. It all starts the day before traveling to Nigeria to play in the U-17 World Cup. It was October 2009. That day before the trip, in training I suffered a blow to my right knee and after tests they told me that I had a bone contusion. I play in the World Cup and the wear and tear of matches every three days causes that bone contusion to eat away at the meniscus and I end up suffering a partial tear. So after the World Cup, I had to have surgery, stop for a while and recover. And when I recovered, I debuted with the first team and in that game I broke the cruciate muscle in my left knee. I had just won the Golden Boot in that U-17 World Cup, which I played with a torn meniscus, and I had just signed my first professional contract with Atlético. Everything was nice, but I debut and I break. The happiest day of my life was the saddest. -Without those two injuries, would your career have been different? -They have influenced me. I don’t know if I would be a better or worse player, but my career was taking off, everything was looking rosy and, suddenly, at 17 years old I have to stop for eight months, with all that that entails. It is true that I recovered well and I have had a career that I am very proud of. First, Second, Premier and now Mexico, but those injuries had their impact. -From the summer of 2011 to 2016 he did the preseason with Atlético, but always ended up on loan. Murcia, Huesca, Deportivo, Zaragoza and Eibar. Do you have any regrets that Atlético would not bet on you for at least a year? -Yes, I do. The season I am at Deportivo, at 21 years old, we are promoted and I am important. At Zaragoza I scored 23 goals, at Eibar 19. And then I came back, did the preseason and had the hope of staying. Maybe not as a reference forward because at Atlético the roles of great players have almost always taken precedence over those of the quarry, but at least being in the squad. I had made good assignments and I think I had earned it. It wasn’t like that and I keep that thorn in my side, but this is football. -Who was responsible for those decisions: Cholo or the club? -I don’t know, but that doesn’t matter now. -In the summer of 2016 he was sold to Swansea for 18 million. That was not as imagined. -It was a complicated experience because in the preseason that summer of 2016, I broke my ulna with Atlético. They sell me while I’m recovering and the first month I can’t play. When I recover, in the second game Liverpool beat us 1-2 and they fired the coach, which is because he had bet on my signing. That season we had five coaches, I barely had minutes and the club told me to be patient and adapt to the country, the team, the culture and the language, but I wanted immediate results. I didn’t have patience and I wanted to feel important, that’s why I went on loan to Málaga and Alavés. And when in my last season I return to play for Swansea, I score five goals in the first five games, they tell me to renew, I tell them that they will wait for the moment and, then, they send me to the bench. -From 2021 to 2024, in Oviedo has fared much better. -It has been a beautiful stage in my life, with the hope of being able to once again be promoted to First Division. In the first two seasons we were very close to getting into the playoff and in the last one what happened against Espanyol in the final playoff happened. We won 1-0 in the first leg and in the second leg by two details, two goals, and we were left without going up. -Why did you go to Pachuca this summer? -The Pachuca Group bought Oviedo in the summer of 2022, the summer of my first to second season there. They gave me a good contract, I believed in the project of moving up and that’s why I stayed for two more years, with that goal. Since it hasn’t happened, I already came here last summer. It is a small club, but a winner. One of the best in Mexico.-Is Mexican soccer more passionate than Spanish or English? Of those three, the most passionate is English. Mexican football is, yes, but England is ahead of the rest. Now, I also tell you that the Mexican league is unknown, but it has a great level of players and clubs. -Can Pachuca beat Madrid? -We have enthusiasm and desire, no one beats us anymore. We are not going to the final thinking about changing shirts after the game. Let’s compete.-Being a colchonero from cradle, is a final against Madrid special?-Since I was little there has always been that rivalry. When the schedule came out, we always looked at when we were facing them. That rivalry is normal, but I have never been obsessed with beating Madrid. – Do you want to win the final by missing a penalty in the shoot-out, as happened in the semifinal? – Without a doubt.
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