On Monday evening, European champions Spain won their 14th triumph in the 17th game of the calendar year against Switzerland; and because the game took place in Tenerife, it should have been Pedri’s evening. The FC Barcelona midfielder grew up in football in Gran Canaria, but he was born in Tegueste, a town half an hour’s drive from the island’s capital Santa Cruz.
In the shadow of the Teide – at 3,715 meters the highest elevation in Spain – the smallest substitute in the kingdom stole the show. Less because, unlike Pedri, he converted a penalty in stoppage time and made the score 3-2 after goals from Yeremi Pino (32′) and Bryan Gil (68′). But because “he made us a few decades younger,” as an elderly commentator in the newspaper said As wrote, namely by hitting hooks on the wing like the football heroes of yesteryear. His name: Bryan Zaragoza.
Zaragoza is currently playing very successfully at fifth-placed CA Osasuna on loan from FC Bayern. He is listed as the third-best assist provider in La Liga so far this season with five assists and scored a goal against FC Barcelona that would easily make it into the Guggenheim in Bilbao as a video installation. The penalty against the Swiss wasn’t a sensation, but the way he took it was. Because he did it in the style of the genuine dribbler that he is. And that was not only the highlight of a 20-minute appearance in which Zaragoza turned the Swiss left defense to the right, but also the basis for a mixed zone debate about Bryan’s life so far. It was extremely short – and ended with a statement from Zaragoza that had the character of a mic drop: “I think you play football with your feet, not with your language.”
The move to the Bundesliga was “a hard experience,” but he also took good things with him, says Zaragoza
That was his pithy answer to a question that briefly referred to a statement made by former Bayern coach Thomas Tuchel in May. On the eve of the Champions League game, Tuchel was asked what problem he had with the Spaniard, and what no one wanted to remember on Monday was, among other things, that Tuchel had arched his eyebrows at the time. Genuinely surprised.
It was he who, together with Bayern sporting director Christoph Freund, “fought hard” to convince Zaragoza to take “a very big step,” said Tuchel. The striker, who was still playing in the fourth division in mid-2022, moved from later relegated Granada to Champions League participants Bayern at the turn of the year 2023/24.
:Palhinha will be out for several weeks with a torn muscle bundle
João Palhinha injured his adductors while playing for the Portuguese national team. He is the Munich team’s second failure in central midfield.
Every transfer takes time, the new England coach also said, arguing that the circumstances didn’t help: on the one hand, Bayern’s poor results, which ultimately led to Tuchel’s departure, and on the other hand, the fact that Zaragoza “isn’t German and not like that “I speak good English”. Tuchel ignored the fact that Zaragoza would also screw up various linguistics exams in Spain, probably due to a lack of relevant knowledge. Nevertheless, Zaragoza felt piqued, according to the receipt he presented on Monday.
The fact that the 23-year-old is shining like he was when FC Bayern replaced him in Andalusia for 15 million euros is not least due to the fact that Zaragoza never tires of emphasizing that he feels “at home” in Pamplona. With his first international goal, he became the first Osasuna player since 1929 to score for Spain’s national team. He called the fact that he grabbed the ball for a penalty against the Swiss an expression of “my personality”.
He could also use this for the insistence with which he pursues the art he has honed on football pitches on ever larger stages: “I keep trying it.” And perhaps he will try it again in Munich too. The move to the Bundesliga was a “hard experience”, the environment and language were new. “But I took very good things with me from there,” he recently told the newspaper The Mailand emphasized that his contract runs until 2029.
