Braithwaite: People see me as the emergency signing but I deserve to be at Barca

Madrid (AFP) – Martin Braithwaite was Barcelona’s emergency signing in February, a quick-fix to replace the injured Ousmane Dembele, but for him the move goes back 10 years to a broken leg and a notebook.

In his first meeting with the club’s president Josep Maria Bartomeu and technical secretary Eric Abidal, Braithwaite was told one of the main reasons Barca were buying him was his mentality.

“I felt like they really knew me,” Braithwaite says in an interview with AFP. “They knew how strong I am mentally and they said that was one of the things that made them go for me. They thought I was up for the test.” 

The toughness they saw owes much to when Braithwaite was 18 and playing for Esbjerg FB in Denmark. A broken leg prompted him to transform his attitude and start writing objectives down in a notebook. 

“I was already a professional footballer but I wasn’t respecting the job and I wasn’t respecting the boy that had a dream to be here,” Braithwaite says. “I took it for granted.” 

A year later, Braithwaite was in a hotel after joining Toulouse when he took out his notebook again. 

“I came to a page of some objectives, maybe three or four years earlier, and I saw I had written Toulouse,” Braithwaite says. “When I saw that, I thought, ‘Wow, the power of the mind is really strong’. 

“And when I was 27 or 28, I wrote I would play for one of the biggest clubs in the world. Now I’m here, where I said I would be 10 years ago.”

– ‘Embarrased’ –

Braithwaite draws upon his childhood too, when a hip condition called Legg-Calve-Perthes left him in a wheelchair between the age of five and seven. 

“I remember I felt sad. I felt embarrassed,” he says. “I was just a kid who wanted to play. I remember the look people would give me, like I was different. 

“Of course, I came through that and look where I am today but at the same time it makes me humble and grateful for the things I have.” 

For some, Barcelona buying Braithwaite was a result of opportunism, through the use of an obscure La Liga rule, and caused by bad planning, after a chaotic transfer window left the squad short.

But Braithwaite sees it as hard work paying off. Even during lockdown, he adds extra training to the club programme and watches videos of his teammates, learning where they move, run and pass, to speed up his adaptation.

from World Soccer Talk https://ift.tt/2KKaJMR