I caught up exclusively with David Raya on his return from a Spain’s disappointing World Cup campaign, after being knocked out by Morocco 3-0. Although he didn’t feature in any of the matches, it is still a huge achievement by him to get called up into the squad.
However, I wanted to know some of the steps taken to get him to where he is today.
Coming through at Blackburn Rovers academy from 15-years-old he quickly progressed through the ranks, but it was his first and only loan move to Southport, near Liverpool, that he credits to fast tracking his career.
Raya said, “It was the best experience to develop my footballing career and as a person, that move taught me how important it was to win matches. I came from an academy that washed your kit and cooked your food, to a team in the Conference Prem (now the National League). We fought not to get relegated, with players that worked normal jobs and played football on the side.”
“The results were so important for the players, some topped up their earnings to help pay bills or use the extra money to get by. This gave me great values to not take anything for granted.”
“We trained at Edgehill in Liverpool, sometimes it was on artificial pitches, due to the grass one flooding or the University having preference on that day. The pitches at the weekends were no better, there was not much attractive football played, but this was an important 3 months for me and a very important step in my career.”
After his loan move finished, Raya asked to stay at Southport and continue playing games, but Blackburn had other ideas, at 19 he made his debut against Leeds soon after returning.
Blackburn would have been monitoring his progress, they felt that he had done well enough to earn his place and continue his development in their first-team, he was a near ever present for the following two seasons.