With Barcelona playing Huesca at the Camp Nou tonight, Spanish newspaper El País features a story today with a player who’s been on both sides.
Rafa Mir spent some time at La Masia before turning professional, before getting released by the club for no apparent reason.
Now representing Huesca, on loan from Wolverhampton Wanderers, the striker has a chance to prove himself against the Catalan side.
The 23-year-old recalls nearly all his career when speaking to El País, claiming he had a difficult time in his first months in Barcelona.
“The first six months were horrible; every day I told my mother that I wanted to go home,” Rafa Mir told El País.
“They called my father and, for no reason, told him that I was not continuing. Nobody understood it, but I didn’t take it badly, as it made me strong”.
Mir then moved to Valencia, where he stayed for a few years, before getting sold to Wolves on a €2m deal in January 2018.
With things not going great at the Molineux, he claims he didn’t have enough chances to prove himself.
“I felt out of place without my family or friends, but I took all the steps to adapt and learned English. I think that football suits me, but they needed to give me confidence and continuity”.
Mir has since had loans at Las Palmas, Nottingham Forest and now Huesca, for whom he has scored ten goals this season.
“It made me stronger,” he says, even though there’s no clear sign of where his future would be, as there’s only one more year left in his contract with Wolves, but El País writes it ‘should be easier’ to sort his situation out following the good season he’s been having in Spain.
