Claudio Bravo: “Ter Stegen realized he couldn’t take me out of the goal”

Claudio Bravo and Marc André ter Stegen were together between 2014 and 2016 for two seasons in the FC Barcelona squad. The Chilean international, now a veteran, is the starter in the League and the German international, who arrived at the Camp Nou at the age of 22, is the goalkeeper who played in the Cup and the 2014-15 Champions League, the latter with Barça club He is European champion. They are two goalkeepers with a number 1 mentality and the intractable fact ended up leaving Bravo because Barça preferred to bet on the full ownership of Ter Stegen, who ten years later was retained, with Zamora Trophy under his belt. Bravo was a culé for two seasons and in one of them he was proclaimed the goalkeeper with the fewest goals scored in the League, with two victories in that tournament. Almost a decade after his departure from Manchester City, Bravo revealed how he lived that experience in the statements in El Legado collected by La Tercera. “Ter Stegen realized he couldn’t get me out,” Bravo said.

In his retrospective recalling the coexistence with Ter Stegen, the 150-times Chile international highlighted his merits at FC Barcelona,​​​​a club he joined after a great cycle in Real Sociedad. “Sportingly, of course, he couldn’t get me out: In the first 7 games I played at Barça I set a Spanish League record of not conceding goals for 7 games, this is my letter of introduction to Barça: 7 games without conceding goals, of course… how they are going to take me out? The first year champion, Zamora, they scored I don’t know if 15 or 16 goals in a tournament that very few have done, and it’s like putting your stamp on it: okay, “To get me fired you have to do more things.”He suggested.

His memory of that competition is very descriptive. “What comes out here is always like a relationship of conflict, of not having that level of friendship, but it is quite the opposite. Ultimately it is understood – from our point of view – that when you have a player with more years of experience and a player who is just starting, in his case, the statements of one or the other are completely different,” he argued.

Bravo, who at 41 years old is now without a team after playing for Betis until last season, gave details of what must be coexistence in a position, of goalkeeper, where only one can play . “In the role I played at that time as the ‘biggest’ player (older) Basically turning things off, not constantly putting things on. There we had a high level of competition, because of course, the situation is logically put there and you can’t sleep, and whoever plays has to do it well, because you play a lot; a Champions League, the League, and you see what you have behind you, and we are talking about players at this level, and the demand is very high,” he stressed.

Ter Stegen admitted “how difficult” that period was with Zubi

definitely, In a recent conversation presented as a documentary by Barça One, Ter Stegen spoke openly with Andoni Zubizarretaformer Barça goalkeeper and sports director of the Barça club at the time the German and Chilean were there, about “how difficult the beginnings were” in his long journey as the club’s goalkeeper. “”When you signed me, I wanted to play a lot of games and it started in the worst way”Ter Stegen explained in the documentary broadcast in May. “Now I see it more calmly. I understand what you thought when you signed Claudio. Going to a young goalkeeper like me can be good or bad. Claudio He has played for Real, he knows the League and he showed it in the two years he was there; He made it spectacular. “I just had to work and complain… and this is what I did.”Ter Stegen is sincere.

These are the feelings that remain, many years later, for the two goalkeepers who left a mark on Barça’s history, although in Bravo’s case he was only there for two seasons.