The charisma of Dani (Sopuerta, 69 years old) is huge. He is the third scorer in the history of Athletic and one of the players most loved by the stands. Even young people today recognize him.
I’m a bit fed up, allow me the confidence and irony, to interview you for being the last Athletic captain to lift a Cup. Now there are two finals coming. It would be bad if this serial does not end here!
You say! LOL. It is on everyone’s mind that of the two, let’s at least get one. The ideal would be to win both, but let’s not be selfish either. It would be good to raise a Cup at the moment in which we are, as football goes.
If you have to take one … the derby?
I look at him as a footballer. If we lose the first, the second will be more difficult, not because it is one team or another, I do not try to focus on the rivalry. Morally it can influence that you lose the first one. You still play a good game and if you fall, you turn your head a lot. It happened to us in ’84, everyone thought Barcelona was going to win, and then Endika’s goal gave us the victory. You still think you can win and if you lose, it would be very detrimental to the second. The first thing is to win the one on day 3, and then let it be what God wants.
Being able to win a Cup 37 years later and have two finals in 14 days has to create anxiety …
A lot. The coach has handled the logical discourse of thinking about the League so far but the player has a tingling … you look at the calendar and remove a sheet from day to day. It has not happened in life.
Did waiting a year for this final seem good to you?
Before Athletic, the finals and football is the life of the people, of the fans. We have to think about the number of Athletic fans that have left and try to avoid leaving us even one more. Every time I see an obituary in the newspaper and the Athletic crest on the left, my heart breaks. Athletic is so great that it will already be celebrated. Those of Bilbao do what we want, right? Now we have to prove it: we will celebrate it whenever we want, hopefully we will win the two finals and as if we celebrated it on February 31st.
But seeing the empty Cartuja is a pain …
It has been a terrible year. I’m watching football and it seems like something else. I see Athletic and I have a listless feeling, a sadness … San Mamés empty is very sad. Athletic lives 99 percent of its fans.
The final that of 84, the goal of Endika, the tangana with Maradona …
The Cup, the Leagues … I had a history of many teams on loan, I had been at Athletic for years and I was reaching the twilight of my career and I was thinking in bed: ‘I’m leaving without getting any title’. When you do a long race, you regret leaving without winning anything. And, suddenly, I found myself with a League title as captain, a Cup title and another League. There are no adjectives in Spanish to explain what it means. When I see images it gives me goose bumps, Now talking to you I see the Barge and my soul is stirred. It is the greatest joy in the world and today’s players have not enjoyed that, but I can tell you that it is the greatest thing you can live. Athletic will show the rest of football that our philosophy is important.
We are close to San Mamés and La Gabarra. Those million people celebrating it will bring back many memories.
You would fill three newspapers with the anecdotes, the illusions and the tears that I shed. Eighty-year-olds who were leaning out of the truck, the one in which we came from Lemona. They just wanted to touch Dani. Not Jesus Christ when the Last Supper! They touched my hand and they left happier … Cloistered nuns who never came out and we saw them there, those on the shipyard cranes at 30 meters high … It was the oyster. People exploded with joy.
Third in goals, with 199 in 402 games. Aduriz stayed away. It seems unbeatable in that drawer of the club’s historic podium.
Is more difficult. He had a great friendship with Aduriz and he told him: ‘you are not going to arrive, you are going to miss it’. It’s very complicated. If you look at the goal statistics, in our days we were made more and we did more. Before it was rare that in a match in San Mamés he did not finish four or five times on goal.
If you had to cross out one of the Real would it be Oyarzabal?
I am an athlete and I do not cross anyone out. I hate people who hate the Royal Society.
But which one do you like the most?
Oyarzabal has something special. His team is superior, but it does not mean that he is a favorite. They influence the nerves, the referee, the errors … all together. Whoever does the best wins.
#Dani #RuizBazán #Gabarra #greatest #live
source https://pledgetimes.com/dani-ruiz-bazan-la-gabarra-is-the-greatest-thing-you-can-live/
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