Following the Championship title with Norwich City, Argentine attacker Emiliano Buendia has been interviewed by his home country’s press about the achievement, and touched upon other things including weather, beaches, and Leeds United’s spygate.
The 22-year-old, who joined the Canaries on a €1.5m deal from Getafe last summer, spoke to La Nacion saying he didn’t expect such quick glory in English football, and now prepares himself to play the Premier League with the club.
“Yes, I would love it, it will be a dream. I have a contract,” Emiliano Buendia told Argentine outlet La Nación. “For my taste it is the best league in the world, the most competitive. And it will be a pleasure to do it at Norwich, for being promoted and the affection that people give us.
“It’s a humble club, very familiar, people are super close, they helped me from the beginning. The leaders don’t want what happened to Fulham, who were promoted, spent £100m and went down. Norwich have already said that they will not spend 100 million in the market. They are not going to do anything crazy with money.”
After living in Spain for so long, Buendia claims he’s had to work on his adaptation since moving to Norwich.
“Well, it’s a totally different culture. Starting with the weather, which is colder and in the winter it gets dark earlier. At that time there is less social life on the street, especially to go out to eat at a restaurant, they close at six in the afternoon. Luckily, my girlfriend was able to come with the baby that was born in August in Madrid, where my partner is from. We made a more home life.
“The city is small, quiet, beautiful. It’s to the East, two hours by car from London and 20, 30 minutes from the beach. I went to one of the beaches, I liked it for a weekend, but as soon as I mentioned it to the squad they told me that I had gone to the worst of all, that the best ones are farther north.”
Buendia has spoken a little about spygate and all the fuss it made for Marcelo Bielsa and Leeds United in England. Now the most interesting part is about how Norwich manager Daniel Farke reacted to the story.
“With the theme of the spy, after Bielsa came out to publicly explain how his method was, Leeds studying between 40 and 50 previous matches of the opponent, our coach told us ‘well guys, then we have to look between 60 and 70 to overcome him’. He said jokingly, he took it as an anecdote.”
Buendia was also asked about playing in Argentina, but all he could say was about his support for a specific Buenos Aires side.
“As a River fan, since I was a kid I said I wanted to play a superclasico against Boca. I was lucky to be in the final of the Copa Libertadores at the Bernabéu. It just happened that I was going with teammates from Norwich to spend a weekend in Madrid. It was a trip prepared two months in advance. And on top of that we had a reservation at River’s hotel. Insane, the planets lined up.”
