Pepe Reina, the ‘crazy goalkeeper’ who never stops: now he is 40

In the same place where he began to free himself after growing up in Barça and then expanding in Europe, he fights back pepe queen retire fulfilled the sweet 20 years at Villarreal and now begins to threaten the crisis of the 40s at home that first saw him succeed. In reality, that romanticism cannot be lost on the charismatic and multifaceted Reina, goalkeeper but also confident in the wardrobe, goalkeeper by vocation but ‘speaker’ of choice by hobby, award-winning idol of the masses in the countryside but also on the street because it’s natural to him. The person is the character and vice versa.

Only 40 years old, the story goes, but his memories are rich and beautiful and he can proudly reflect on his work, which he wrote in his own handwriting despite his father’s marked legacy, the work- action. michael’s queen. Deaf to that worrisome phrase of “son of…”, Pepe managed to bypass his father’s surname until the symbol of Atlético and Barça like his father was recognized as “Father of Pepe Reina”.

And this is the goalkeeper of Barça, Villarreal, Liverpool, Napoli… He knows how to choose the best of his paternal inheritance, the one that set him up to be a goalkeeper and gave him the genes to defend it and be the enemy of the forwards. And that, in the beginning, he joined the other side: he started as a tip. But, not only because of the genes, the plot is his final destination.

Because Pepe Reina, an obsessed student of penalty shots, the soul of the national team party and a compulsive inveterate joker, has such a madness that drives one to ‘lock’ oneself in the loneliness of purpose and stay there forever. Because the goalkeeper is the person no one wants to be with in innocent street football, the person everyone is waiting to be killed by the slightest mistake, the one who endures the tense wait to free himself before. the proximity of danger. More than patience, Reina enjoys it, which is why she loves to stop punishments and even predict them so that someone can stop them.

Someone was disappointed Iker Casillas Óscar Cardozo in the quarterfinals of the 2010 World Cup against Paraguay with the score 0-0 because Pepe told him he was going to throw him to the right. He memorized it from the two times the Paraguayan striker cheated him in a Europa League knockout match between Liverpool and Benfica in 2010. Reina is, in fact, the naughty but applied boy who gets good grades. We never liked a sneak so well.

But with so many nuances you cannot lose the essence of the privileged mind of the goalkeeper born in Madrid, laughter, good humor, empathy but also lasting determination and optimism that proves everything. His debut at the age of 18 with the first team of Barça in 2000 at the hands of Lorenzo Serra Ferrer The substitution of Richard Dutruel in a match against Celta and the good impression made -and in the past of his father watching him-, could predict a long and happy journey as a Barça player. But your friend and companion Victor Valdes It would be an enemy on the table to fulfill the wish and in 2002 he went on loan to Villarreal. Barça waived its rights in 2004 to the operation it sent Juliano Belletti at Camp Nou. Mutual happiness.

Because of what happened in 2006 in Paris in a Barça key and because Reina helped Villarreal learn to speak in Europe with 2003 and 2004 Intertoto Cups which earned him a place in the UEFA Cup -reaching the semi-finals in 2004-, and qualification for the Champions League in 2005 in a 04/05 season that saw Pepe become a predictor of penalties by stopping 7 of 9. So it is necessary of Rafael Benitez with Liverpool daring to lift a 3-0 win over Milan in the 2005 Champions League final.

His long stay on Merseyside (2005-2013) and his flights, combined with his reflexes and leadership, got him into the hearts of the ‘reds’. He penetrated her completely from the pleasure of her fetish, penalties, three stops in the penalty shootout of the final of FA Cup of 2006 against West Ham after another 3-3 by the ‘Pool’, and, under the mystery of Anfield in all its glory, his hands pushed Liverpool into the 2007 Champions League final by saving two penalties in the shootout against Chelsea in the semifinals. No one remembers what Barça might have been or who his father was. Pepe, independent, has self-worth.

It was a rich year for his record, an FA Cup, a League Cup (2012), a Community Shield (2006) with Liverpool. That three Golden Glovesthe prize received by the Premier goalkeeper with the most unbeaten games, which he established the record as ‘red’ with 20, valid until Allison He surpassed it in 2019. And, above all, the Euro-World Cup-Euro Cup trilogy where he was always happy under the figure of Casillas without being there. There is no substitute as popular and influential as him, wardrobe hinge, instigator of high-participation card games, announcer at so many national team celebrations, so happy at the World Cup final with his beloved’s scarf. Córdoba, the beloved city where his father was born.

He did not stop in Liverpool but instead continued his tour of the Old Continent, embracing the tradition and passion of beautiful Naples following his beloved teacher, Rafa Benítez. When he arrived in 2013, he was already elevated as the idol of the Neapolitan ‘tifosi’. But it is not in the south but in the north, where San Siro he deprived ‘Napoli’ of happiness, a virgin of victories against Milan since the days of Maradona (1986). Reina maintained that happiness to bring it back to the south, becoming the first to stop a penalty against Mario Balotelli. Always the eleven meters, the greatest happiness and not the highest punishment for Pepe, a Cup (2014) and four years in the ‘gli azurri’ with an unsuccessful time at Bayern met even with the Bundesliga in his pocket (14- 15) to also overcome a city dying for him and awaken in him a feeling that made him surrender in stunning PSG in 2017.

In the years of Bayern, Milan and Aston Villa Until the last two great courses at Lazio he was more overlooked, but his services for clubs of such caliber appear there to give more luster to his enviable and still unfinished resume for love football, which needs folksy and horny guys like him.

If I’m the ‘speaker’ at any party in town, I’ll screw up even the saddest grandpa. If I were a goalkeeper building, he will give you “good morning” and smile, if he is at the disco, he will not scare you but you will also laugh at him. Always with the same way of being and the same feeling for his origin, at 40 Reina is still the same, competitive, playfulstops and blows out a candle in the same place as 20. But it’s not that he wants to go back to his youth, it’s that he lives here. The eternal youth of ‘mad goalkeeper’ Pepe Reina.