He has enjoyed football again and it shows. martha cardona (Zaragoza, 1995) suffered a meniscus injury in his right knee in 2021, when he was at Real Madridwho kept her more than 100 days without playing and that led to some problems that made it think about withdrawal. Last summer, recovered, he played the Eurocopa before signing for Atlético, in which she underwent an arthroscopy in April to finally say goodbye to pain. “For me it has been a rebirth ”, he confesses to AS in an interview on the occasion of the Cup Final Four, which the rojiblancas will play tomorrow against Alhama (9:00 p.m., RTVE).
—She was recently operated on her knee, but she has just started and scored, how is she doing?
—I’m picking up the pace because in the end I’ve been stopped for two months. The intervention was minimal, but if you stop for a week and it shows, two months I won’t even tell you… I feel very good, better than ever and getting very good feelings.
—How did you live the last game of Virginia in Alcalá?
“It’s hard to fire a partner. We have spent many moments in the National Team and at Atleti, with everything that has happened. She is a born fighter, a great professional and that was her farewell, well deserved by her. As he said, she would have liked it to be otherwise, but we wish her the best and we will always be with her.
—He told the media that he raised the last Bald Cup and wanted to raise one with hair…
—And we would also like to do it with her and with all the people who support us to dedicate it to her.
—How is this Final Four presented for Atleti?
—We know we can save her with the Queen’s Cup. First is the semifinal, of course, there is no need to talk about a hypothetical final. Will be an error. We are thinking of the Alhama.
—They just descended, do you think you can make them more dangerous?
“Of course, they have nothing to lose. In a match anything can happen. They come from a blow, they have an illusion, like us, of winning a Cup or being in a hypothetical final. I know it’s going to be a tough game.
—Any rival that they will have to tie short?
—Well, the one we already know, mythical Jade, gives them a lot in the area. You will have to be especially vigilant.
“We all imagine ourselves in the final, it’s what we want, but it would be a mistake to think about that”
—Is it visualized in the final on Saturday?
—Yes, we all imagine ourselves in the final, it’s what we want, but it would be a mistake to think of that and not in the semifinal, that’s when things go awry.
—You have a Cup in your palmares, how do you remember that day?
—It was very nice, recently it was the anniversary, on May 11 (2019). I am very fond of that year, of each game and then the final was spectacular, with all the fans. We had a song with the psychologist, ‘Sua’, which later appeared in the documentary they made and I got goosebumps the other day. I would love to experience it again, but this time not against Atleti, but with Atleti. Give that chance. Anything that involves playing in a final and winning a trophy is the best you can aspire to as a footballer.
—So it was in Los Cármenes, what do you expect from Butarque?
– Let it fill up. There is also a great concert before the final, Ana Mena. That there is a show like this before boosts women’s football and makes it possible to create fans and more people want to come see us.
—After thinking about retirement, have you managed to enjoy football again?
“Now at the end yes. In fact, the thing about retiring comes because the knee wasn’t right and it wasn’t right until the last game against Real Madrid, which is when I got injured. To make it easy to understand, it was like when you get a pebble in your foot and it hurts a lot and you can’t get it off. That’s what I had in my knee and I didn’t know it, and it hurt a lot, a lot, a lot… In the end, when I have a bad sprain, all evil is good, that little stone loosens, where my knee was blocked knee, and the Atleti doctors have already managed to analyze where it came from and they have cleaned it. It was just that. For me it has been a rebirth so to speak. He had a lot of pain. I got used to playing like that, but it wasn’t good either.
—You talk a lot about mental health, how much does the psychological work?
-Quite. I think that it is not appreciated in each of us that it is not only to compete, train and go home. That is not like that. There are many factors around us, nutrition, mental, etc., that are around us. Particularly the mental aspect is very important for me, especially in high competition, now that women’s football is becoming more and more viral and more professional. There are many more criticisms, which you have to accept, and in the transition we are experiencing, you see a lot of the positive, but not the negative, and the negative entails that. It is what we are all trying, with psychologists, to become stronger mentally and be prepared for what may happen to us.
“It is what we are all trying, with psychologists, to make ourselves stronger mentally”
—You have been at Atleti for a short time, have they been able to convey that to you? another way of understanding life?
—You can’t even imagine it, you can’t even imagine it… I went to a club with Lola, my president, (Romero, women’s soccer director) a month ago, when I was injured, here in Paracuellos del Jarama… I had never been to any, not even in Zaragoza, and I told him that “it seems spectacular to me”. In the end, Atleti is them, the fans, the clubs, the people, how Atleti lives. How they live Atleti is amazing, how they instill it from little ones. Honestly, if I wasn’t from Atleti, now I am 100% because I thought it was beautiful.
—And the contract ends, what plan do you have?
—There we go, we still don’t know very well. Everything will be seen soon, very soon.
—Looking a little further, the World Cup is coming, can you see it in Australia and New Zealand?
-Hopefully. I think any footballer wants to aspire to a World Cup with his team. I would love to, of course, I will do my best to be on that list with my teammates.
“If we want this, being a footballer, to be a decent job, they have to raise wages”
—they covered the logo of Liga F on the weekend as a protest against the blocking of the agreementhow do you live it?
—It is sad because in the end, I am going to use that term that is used now, it seems posturing: “yes, I bet on women’s football, but I don’t just bet on it”. It can’t be, there’s a lot of income, where are they? It cannot be that everything is in expenses, for the League or what they say. It has to be for the clubs so that this improves not only in wages, but also in infrastructure. But above all in salaries there can be no such minimal increase that they are proposing and dedicate yourself to this 100%. It is impossible. If we want this, being a footballer, to be a decent job, wages have to rise.
—This season there have been many scandals of abuse, verbal or sexual harassment, around the world, one allegedly in your rival on Tuesday, do you need more tools to protect the players?
—In general we need tools of everything, obviously for this too. These things cannot be allowed if they are true. If they are true, they are justified and there is evidence, it cannot be. In the masculine it does not happen, it has never come out, why in the feminine yes. There is the symbol of machismo, we must eradicate that.