"I don't play to dribble, I don't play to run after the ball nor do I play for anything else. Since I was little. I've played all my life in the neighborhood and in the end I play for that," says Bryan Zaragoza in DAZN's El Post. Now Suddenly, at 22 years old, Bryan Zaragoza has become one of the fashion forwards in Spanish football thanks to the two goals he scored against FC Barcelona with Granada on Sunday night in Los Cármenes, a A fantastic match for the man from Malaga that culminated with the call of Luis de la Fuente to the senior team list for the games against Scotland and Norway.
In these times, with footballers like Yamine Lamal (16 years old), Gavi (19 years old) or Ansu Fati and Jude Bellingham, the star of Madrid, (both also 20), Bryan Zaragoza's 22 could have made him someone much more difficult, but that is not the case. In his professional career, the man from Malaga from the La Palmilla neighborhood has only played nine matches in the First Division, six of them as a starter, 593 minutes in which he has scored five goals, one of them from a penalty; a remarkable record for a rookie, only behind Bellingham and the same as Robert Lewandowski, Joselu, Morata and Take Kubo.
For an emerging value in Spanish football, Bryan Zaragoza's termination clause is 14 million, an amount well below the market. The first comment heard today in the Nasrid city was obvious: it was impossible to keep him for another season.
Zaragoza was always clear that at 1.64 centimeters tall and with a small body in football, either he was a skilled winger and dribbler or he would not reach the elite. His first club was CD Tiro Pichón from Malaga, a football school founded in 1977 whose motto is “the largest neighborhood club in the world” and whose website yesterday featured a photo of Bryan Zaragoza on the cover.
Signed by Granada, the player debuted in Second B on loan at El Ejido in the 2020-21 season; In the next he returned to Granada, already in First Division, where he took a place in Aitor Karanka's team that ended up being relegated to Second Division. Last season was the promotion to Primera again as leaders of the silver division. Zaragoza, author of several Maradonian goals, had a lot to do with it.
Asked about his idols, the young man from Malaga is clear: “My reference has always been Leo Messi. "I also really liked Neymar and now, lately, I've been paying a lot of attention to Vinícius."
At the end of the game against Barça and on the pitch, the player was also asked if he thought it possible that one day he would be called up for the national team. He was phlegmatic: “When he has to arrive, he will arrive. If they call me? "I'm walking." He didn't need it. Luis de la Fuente summoned him yesterday night.
