Chen in the month of March cucurella replaced the injured Gayá in the penultimate list of Luis de la Fuente Before the Euro Cup many were surprised. The footballer was coming off a tough injury that left him out for three months and the coach extended his hand to him. He once again showed his confidence and the player responded. In that call-up, the following weeks at Chelsea and in the first two games of this European Championship.
He puts his heart into every training session and it shows on the pitch. He has reached football maturity and has managed to leave one of the best left-backs of the season on the bench, his friend Grimaldo. “He knows what I want from him and that makes everything much simpler. He is a magnificent footballer in all facets of the game.“says Luis de la Fuente.
Cucurella: “Few people gave anything for us”
A beast of non-negotiable effort
“I know what I’ve done, I know what I’ve worked to be here. I’ve had the opportunity and I try to take advantage of it,” Cucurella said after his debut against Croatia. Those who know him less discovered the most serious, forceful, orderly and supportive version of the Chelsea full-back. Something that is not new for those who have known him for years. Garcia Pimienta He was his coach in the Barça youth team when Cucu was a first-year youth player and he reminds MARCA that “he already showed the Cucurella that you are seeing in the Euro Cup.” His main virtue is competitiveness. “It is always 100%. It doesn’t matter if you are training or playing. It doesn’t matter if you play against the last placed team, if it’s a friendly or if it’s a Euro Cup match.. He always shows the best version of himself in terms of attitude,” explains the one who was his coach when he was young and in the Barcelona reserve team.
Defensively he is a rock and offensively he knows perfectly well when to go up
Those years, a young man also walked through the corridors of the Masía Juan Miranda. The Betis full-back, who has a great personal relationship with Cucu, saw him as a reference: “When I was in the youth team I paid a lot of attention to him, he had more experience than me and he gave me a lot of advice. He had a lot of good things to do to succeed and he has done so“. Both share a position and coincided in the Barça reserve team and in the Olympic team that represented us in Tokyo. “We had that healthy rivalry that we all have, but we got along very well. Defensively he is a rock and offensively he knows perfectly well when to go up“, explains Olivares.
Cucurella talks about his great game against Italy: the memes and his path to the Euro
Two soccer dads
Cucurella’s first destination when leaving Barcelona was Eibar. There he met the first of the two coaches who would mark his path to football maturity: José Luis Mendilibar. And years later, in Getafe, he would come across the second: Pepe Bordalás. They both trusted him, correcting his defects and enhancing his virtues until he became a winger desired by the Premier League sharks. Brighton paid Getafe 18 million for his services and, just a year later, Chelsea paid 65 million. An outrage when talking about the price of a side.
When he signed for Chelsea I received a message from him thanking me for what had helped him fulfill his dream
Marc is a “footballer.” And we are not saying it, Mendilibar said it back in 2018 in a statement that is now gaining more strength. “He is not fast, nor is he strong, but he is smart. He is a footballer and he chooses well”, explained the technician. He has developed his strength and speed exponentially and now he is a bull.
As he always goes 100%, he transmits that drive to the team, the desire to do well and compete.
A winger with a defensive vocation or a winger with an offensive vocation. Cucu can play further forward or further back thanks, among others, to Pepe Bordalás. At Getafe he finished underpinning that player profile and he was grateful when he signed as a club member of the Chelsea entity. “When he became one of the most expensive full-backs in history, I received a message from him thanking me for what had helped him fulfill his dream. These are details that one does not forget. One of the great satisfactions of a coach is seeing his players grow,” the Alicante coach explains to MARCA.
A worker with a big heart
“No one has given me anything. I am here for my work, on my own merits. It has not been an easy road, I have had to work and sweat a lot. “Everything I have achieved has been through work,” says Cucu. And he is right. At 25 years old, he has been through six clubs (Barça signed him from the Espanyol youth academy when he was a cadet) and has patiently waited for the opportunity with the selection. “He has gone through all the teams he has needed to gradually climb the ranks and he still has not given his best version. As he always goes 100%, he transmits that drive to the team, the desire to do well and compete. His role in the Eurocup doesn’t surprise me at all because I’ve known him for many years and it’s always been like that,” García Pimienta recalls.
Cucu, along with his friend Grimaldo and Rodri.RFEF
Grimaldo, collateral damage
The collateral damage of Cucurella’s role is Grimaldo. It hurts to see the best full-back in the Bundesliga on the bench, but he can only play one; although there will be moments for everyone. His 12 goals and 20 assists seemed like a devastating argument when it came to positioning him as the team’s starting full-back., but for now Cucu wins the game. “The left back position in Spain is very expensive. There were many players who could have come to the Euro Cup. Cucurella has played two great games,” he said in the mixed zone after the game against Albania.
The best thing about this story is that both separate their sports rivalry from their personal relationship. In fact, They are two great friends and spend most of their time together at the camp. They share a person’s most precious value: time. And that sums it up. Video games, table tennis, walks… Any plan is good if you are together. “We are very friends and we are here to help the team at any time,” confesses Grimaldo.
