Between the departure of Joselu Mato, the call from Barça to Sergi Darder, the telematic presentations and the rumors one day and another also of the offers that could arrive at the Stage Front Stadium, José Gragera sends a message of enthusiasm. A flower in the parakeet desert, immobile until the arrival of a sports director who is worryingly delaying. The parakeet midfielder, who arrived in January from Sporting in exchange for 2.8 million, has given an interview to the newspaper El Comercio in which he reviewed the difficulties of relegation and his motivation for the new season to arrive.
“I’m going on,” admits Gragera, “and I really want to start the season. The opportunity that was given to me last year in this club was great and what less than to return that confidence by giving everything. We have a very good team to have a great year and return Espanyol where it deserves”, stressed the player, who also recounts the shadows of his ankle injury in recent days that prevented him from helping the team: “I finished the season with a sprained ankle. I couldn’t compete or help the team. It hurt a lot because of the situation we were experiencing at Espanyol, but I recovered well. And I ended up training with the group”, he stressed.
The footballer, who came to play as a central defender with Diego Martínez and as a midfielder with Luis García, admits that the dressing room welcomed him “incredibly” and that he is living a dream in his first experience of relegation. I had never experienced anything like this. It was very painful because we saw each other with the hope of being able to get it out, but look how it happened in the end. The locker room was desolate. It was a new and very lasting sensation outside of Gijón. “My dream has always been to be able to play in top competition. Doing so was an immense joy. It is what I have worked for all my life (…) The adaptation was good. It took me a couple of weeks to get in touch with everything. My mother told me those first days that we arrived in Barcelona that it seemed that I didn’t even know where I was. We were staying in a hotel and it was complicated”.
Upon his arrival in April, Luis García “instilled confidence in him, it was a shame that I was injured in all three games.” That fall from Espanyol to hell was something that Gragera will never forget: “The relegation was something quite hard. I had never experienced anything like this. It was very painful because we saw each other with the hope of being able to get it out, but look how it happened in the end. The locker room was desolate. It was a new and very hard feeling.”