Isi Palazón: "I am not a hero for having picked peaches"

Isi Palazón

(Cieza, 1994) maintains the Murcian accent despite leading a life trotting through Spanish territory.

She receives

in the sports city of

, the last stop in a career that has mixed

.

He tried, without luck, in the

, returned to town, worked picking

and in the end found elite football in

, perhaps where he least expected it.

Tonight he receives

while the fans whisper "

".

He has been leading Rayo at a good level for many months.

Do you feel like a star? Not at all, I don't feel like that.

Now I have been a couple of days in my town, in Cieza, which is very football-loving.

They see me there and I see them happy with me, and I'm even embarrassed because I'm still the same, I'm still having the same beers with the same friends in the same places.

People tell me "you're very good" and I honestly... I don't know if it's because I don't want the praise to weaken me, which it has done many times and I'm gaining experience in that aspect, or is it that I really want to continue to more, but I don't see myself as one of the team leaders.

I know I'm doing things right, but I don't feel that way and I think it's time to be quiet from the outside He says that the flattery has weakened him.

At some point have you believed yourself more than you were? Yes, it has happened to me and that is what I have learned.

That is why I tell you that I unconsciously try to be in the shadow of those comments.

I don't want it to happen to me again.

That's why I try to talk about the collective, not the individual.

Before I had much more ego than now.

Since I look more for the team, things are better for me. As a teenager, he was in two important academies such as Madrid and Villarreal.

Does having gone to Ponferradina and Rayo, more humble clubs, have anything to do with that change? It could be.

We all know that Rayo is a neighborhood club.

I receive many messages on social networks from people who have a hard time making ends meet and in the end, at least for me, it touches your heart.

I also come from a humble family and life has given me economic stability,

but I understand that many people find it difficult and more so the way things are now.

In Ponferrada people lived off coal and now they have to look for life.

Perhaps having been in these two teams has made me not get out of that bubble.

Maybe being in another team maybe I would have lost my mind. How did it affect you mentally leaving the town so young to such important quarries? It was difficult.

I have always been very homely, very family-oriented, hanging around town with friends... And going out was a very hard stick, for me, for my sisters, because I am the middle child, the only boy, and for my fathers.

My mother was very fond of me and my father has demanded a lot from me, although not badly.

He never told me off when I got home, he made me reflect and he never praised me too much so that I didn't get too high.

He kept my feet on the ground

both him and my friends, who have been very important. Madrid was his first experience away from home.

How did he experience it? The truth is that I had a very bad time.

He was 13 years old and the first three months I had a very bad time.

He was the youngest in the residence.

And it was worse when my parents and my little sister went back to Cieza on Sunday after visiting me for the weekend.

In the Madrid academy I learned a lot, but of course, it is very big, it encompasses many players and they are not going to be 100% aware of all of them.

But that helped me when I later went to Villarreal. After Madrid he returned to Cieza. Yes, they ruled me out.

It was a blow, because he had been there, he was a kid and he went back to town to see what the people said with their speculations... And then the whole town knew him by then, right?

There would be pressure being just a teenager. Yes, it is a very footballing place,

and after Camacho he was the only one who had been in the Madrid academy.

It was difficult because of the comments, because you are a kid and sometimes they hurt you.

I went back to the school I was in and got my life back as normal as possible.

I stayed a year and went to Villarreal. After Madrid, isn't there something inside that says "be careful if you leave"? No, no.

Villarreal held a recruitment tournament, I got the MVP and they offered me a three-year contract in youth.

I left without thinking.

I was looking forward to going out again and showing my people, my family and my people that I was worth this.

And they were three wonderful years. However, three years later, another stick. Another stick.

They didn't count on me.

It has not been an easy road, really, but who has an easy life?

Didn't you take sticks?

My parents have taken sticks,

my sisters are taking sticks... We all had a bad time and worse times will come.

This is life.

I have thought a lot about this, because I have lived a lot away from home and I have not been at important moments for my family.

That makes you wonder if it's worth it... And it is.

And not because I am now in the First Division, which is a gift, but because I have experienced moments that will help me in life. (At that moment, from a distance, Óscar Trejo makes a joke about the time when Palazón picked peaches).

Did working picking fruit bring you down a bit after Villarreal? Yes.

When Villarreal stopped counting on me, it was different from when it happened to me in Madrid.

With Madrid he was more concerned about "what will they say" than about football, but in Villarreal he did think about football.

He told me: "Maybe I'm not worth it anymore."

It is not something heroic that I have worked on peaches.

I came from charging a thousand and something euros in Villarreal as a youth, I arrived in Cieza and they gave me 300 euros.

And with that I lived without a problem, because I lived where my parents lived, but I had to do something in the mornings. Is the step of getting to work given by you or someone instigating you? Well, let's see.

The issue is that the Villarreal thing was a tough stick because it was in October, just starting the season, and he couldn't play with another club until the winter market.

I started training with Cieza, but of course, training started at half past eight in the afternoon.

I was up late for two weeks and I needed to do something.

I was feeling bad physically and mentally and I told a friend that I was going to work with him.

I started to like him

and I don't know if they gave me 100 euros a week, but I stayed for several months.

It was nothing heroic, I'm not a hero.

There are many people who work there to earn their careers. And from there an opportunity arises in the Murcia subsidiary. I spent that final part of the season at Cieza and signed with Murcia Imperial.

We trained at three in the afternoon with the sprinklers on because of the heat.

It was a nice time, I rejoined and started training and playing with the first team a few weeks later. Were those six months training with Cieza and working on the fruit a bit of the boost I needed? Working on the fruit made me see really what life is.

Until then I had been in the quarries of soccer teams forgetting everything.

And working he said: "Damn, how much does this cost".

He came home at two in the afternoon with a broken back,

After a while I was going to train... Everything hurt, but the others were working just like me.

That helped me go for it when the Murcia opportunity arose. Just as fast as the sticks come, good things come. Yes, I was in Murcia for two years and then I went to Ponferrada, where I met wonderful people outside of football.

The first year was complicated, but Bolo came to the second and it was the most wonderful year of my life with the promotion to Segunda. And, suddenly, the elite. That was... I really didn't believe it.

In Murcia, for example, we were playing in the promotion phase to Second Division and for whatever reason I didn't see myself playing in the elite, I always thought they were going to give me up.

And yet, I don't know what happened to me in Ponferrada that... I've been happy.

I was 800 kilometers from home but I was happy.

It was in that second year at Ponferradina that I began to believe that I could play in the elite.

I saw teammates playing in Second Division on Instagram and said: "Why not me?"

I began to think more collectively than individually.

My ego was transformed and promotion came, which I have tattooed on my leg. (He has several tattoos all over his left leg) What do the tattoos mean? I have tattooed three goals that I scored with Ponferradina.

One against Cornellá, another against Cartagena and another in the Hercules field.

Then I have the map of El Bierzo and above my knee the phrase "The dream continues".

Now behind that knee I have made another: "The dream is real."

I have a rose from the knee to the left foot all the way of thorns, which has cost me to see the top.

Being in Ponferradina I already knew that I was going to play in the First Division.

He knew it.

He saw me with football and the head to achieve it.

Then I have my entire back tattooed, a pride of lions for my family, an image of myself playing as a child in the village, the eye of my grandmother who passed away, a tree of life with 5-6 birds that mean important people in my life... At some point in your life did you consider leaving football? Yes, there were times when you told me: "I'm going to suffer and see people suffer."

But deep down I knew that I was going to make a living from football. What does it mean to return to Cieza, to have the same life and for your friends to be the same as before with you? There are people I know who don't, but my people are the same as before.

If they have to tell me something, they tell me.

Before, if I went down to town I would have five or six beers and now they are the ones who tell me "Isi, be careful".

And I say, "Why?"

If I did this when I was in Third, in Second B, in Second... I'm going to continue doing it in First.

I go to town and people say to me: "What are you doing here?".

And I answer: "No, what are you doing here?"

(laughs).

You know?

I'm still the same.

My friends have been key in that, telling me: "Get off the donkey, you're not that bad." Do your parents still live in the same house? Yes.

My father is a janitor at a school and still works there.

My parents live inside the school compound.

And when I go home I put the car inside the enclosure.

My sisters have become independent but I still live there.

I think that living in a school made me evolve faster in some aspects of football, I was always there hitting balls, playing with older people... Is it a bit 'choppy' playing? I'm where I am because I'm a 'choppy' ( laughs).

Even playing cards with my sister I want to win.

That demand and ambition has brought me here.

With my teammates from Rayo, for example, when we play pocha betting ten euros, most of them punch the bus... (Laughter). What do you think when people say "Isi Selección"? my.

When Luis Enrique said that "the only Isi I know plays for Rayo and is very good" I was driving to Cieza and suddenly the mobile started ringing nonstop.

I sensed that something had happened.

My mother called me to let me know and it is incredible for me that my mother calls me with such happiness, they who have suffered so much when I have left home, who have heard many comments in the town... It is more for them than for my.

The coach talking about me is like going to the World Cup for me.

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