He was the fuse of the comebacks for Madrid de Capello in 2007 and scored the goal of the two-time championship in 2008, but the passage of time did not give him the necessary luck where Madrid most wanted it: the Champions League.

Gonzalo Higuaín (Brest, 1987) went to Naples, where he became King until he signed for Juventus, eternal rival.

Now, after passing through Milan and Chelsea, he sells out games at Inter Miami in the MLS.

From his life, from praise and criticism, from goals and mistakes, from titles and lost finals, especially with Argentina, he talks with EL MUNDO.

Last week he scored a

hattrick

and was MLS player of the week.

He's for the World Cup. (

Laughter

).

I'm very happy.

I had an unusual year.

I was injured, I had to spend many games on the bench, which is something that had never happened to me, and now I feel that I deserve this.

There are few games left and hopefully we can enter the Playoffs. Have you found sporting and emotional peace in Miami? Yes, both.

After so many years in Europe I found sporting and emotional peace.

It was a wise decision, it was what he was looking for. Buffon said that if one day he lacked fire, he would retire.

Do you still have it? Yes, Gigi always told me that.

When you don't mind losing, when you're tired of traveling or don't feel like going in, it's time to say enough.

I still feel it.

I'm happy. How have you experienced the change from a European league to the American one?

It is a path that more and more veteran players, such as Gareth Bale, are choosing. The change is noticeable,

but it is a difficult league in which you cannot come relaxed.

When Bale arrived, Carlos Vela said that if he wanted to play he had to work hard, and I agree with him.

I have now been here for two years and it is a competitive league.

I try to transmit the mistakes and virtues that I have experienced in my career, because in all the teams I have played for I was forced to win.

This year strange things touched me and I had to rethink things.

In April it was my last starting game, three months passed... It was a lot of work and patience. How do you treat young boys?

Do you see them as very different from how you were when you were young? Yes, they are different.

Also because of society, when I was young there was not all that interaction with phones.

Society pushes you and young people adapt, but I do see perhaps personally that they listen to you less, but I don't blame them.

Laughs

) Yes, he was very horny.

My dad was like that... But thank God I don't get angry anymore for nonsense.

I try to learn. How have you handled criticism, both in the national team and in the clubs? Every human being is annoyed by criticism, whether you are a football player, an architect... Whatever you do in your life.

After the 2014 World Cup final against Germany, yes, on social networks...

Pff

.

Not only in my case.

It is something that lowers your self-esteem, generates depression, anorexia or that your attitude towards the world is bad due to the number of things that are said behind a computer.

Anyone has that facility to criticize, to insult without knowing you, without knowing your life, and then call it envy, frustration... They focus all that on the life of a successful guy.

The successful always expect things to go wrong and it would have to be the other way around, admiring why he achieved that success.

But it is part of life.

I am a very strong person mentally and the support of my family always makes me stable, but I also had to work a lot in some aspects and today I feel full and happy.

There are players who tell me "if I had played with just one of the players you played with, it would be glory".

I played with the best

seven years in the best team in the world... I had very bad times, but like life, everyone in their professions has moments like this and the important thing is to learn, change and suffer as little as possible.

Life is about the simple and the most important thing is to be happy, although I don't know if happiness exists.

It's about trying to be the best you can and that irrelevant things don't hurt you, but maturity and experience give you that. Do you regret anything? No, nothing.

On the contrary.

Football gave me so much more than I expected.

What happens is that in football there is the possibility of winning and losing, and I have been able to play all possible finals in all competitions.

World Cup, Copa América, Champions, Cups, Super Cups... I missed the Club World Cup.

I played everything, I dreamed everything and then you can win or lose, but I lived them.

I played in the best team,

I was champion in all of them... I don't regret anything. How much of your life have you had to pay to play football? Football takes away more than it gives, without a doubt.

People say "the career you've done, where you've lived"... Yes, that's very good, but it took away my adolescence, it took away moments with my friends, birthdays with my family... Look, since I was 18 years old I don't know what it's like to have a free weekend, something simple like putting together a plan on a Saturday afternoon.

50% of my entire life has been in hotels and travel.

The sadness and having a global impact if you do things right or wrong takes away more than it gives, but I don't complain about what it gave me or took away.

I do believe that the way of criticizing and giving opinions towards a player must be changed.

Not because a player is in Madrid and has money, you have to disqualify him from a non-football side if he plays badly.

Disqualifying contemptuously is not okay.

Then when a player disqualifies a journalist it seems that it is wrong, because you are a footballer, you earn money and supposedly you have no right to judge anyone.

If you judge, assume being judged. Surely you are the player who has played the most times alongside Messi and Cristiano. So look, what you just said... I played with the two best players of the last... I don't know, one of the best in history, and with two of the best goalkeepers in history such as Buffon and Casillas, I spent seven years in the best team in history, I scored more than 100 goals, 15 titles, the second Argentine player with the most games in the Madrid.

"Yes, but this happened to you...", they say.

Barbarian, I accept it.

But my career speaks for itself. Is it easy to play with Messi and Cristiano because of their quality but difficult because of the pressure? I didn't feel pressure to play with them.

I felt privilege, happiness and pleasure.

Look what football gave me.

I tried to adapt to them, not for them to adapt to me, and perhaps that is why I have been one of those who played the most with both of them.

A pride. When he leaves Madrid he reaches 36 goals in Napoli, and when Cristiano leaves Madrid Benzema becomes the leader and top scorer.

Do you see similarities between the two when they stop playing alongside Cristiano? I don't know.

The first year Cristiano arrived in Madrid, I scored 27 goals and on 26. After that, well... He scored 50 goals a year.

How do you get 50!

(Laughter) Cris was obviously the predominant one, the player that everyone expected to score goals,

but I enjoyed playing with both.

I never suffered from it.

I was privileged. If you had stayed in Madrid, would you have also won the four Champions Leagues in five years? (

laughs

) I don't know.

It didn't happen, so I don't know.

I was privileged to play there, to live what I lived.

Being a 19-year-old when I signed, having been there for seven years is a huge pride.

It is not that I had arrived formed, at 24 years old, no, I arrived with 40 games at River Plate to the best team in history, where everyone thought I would last two minutes, and I played seven years.

When I returned to Milan they applauded me and for me that is worth more than any title.

I will always love Madrid.

The reality is that for me after Madrid there is nothing better.

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