“Soap and water, nothing else. Never, ever put them in the washing machine: soap, water, hang them on the line, that’s it.” David Raya has been shown a pair of well-worn goalkeeper gloves, held at arm’s length between thumb and forefinger, and asked his advice: how do you stop these from absolutely stinking? Which they do, he knows, even from a safe distance. The size of the smile reveals that, recognition instant. It’s not something he has to do any more – these days he pulls on a new pair every few games – but it was. Not just the gloves, either.
“My story isn’t the typical footballer’s story,” the Arsenal goalkeeper says, settling on to the steps outside the dressing rooms at the Spanish federation’s Las Rozas HQ, 25km northwest of Madrid.
“It’s the story of a boy who leaves his country at 16, alone, and fulfils his dreams: who ends up playing for his national team, in the Champions League, and for one of the biggest clubs in the Premier League and the world.”
Raya is talking the day before his first competitive game for Spain, a 3-1 win in Cyprus. On Saturday he returns with Arsenal to Brentford, although Premier League rules dictate that, as a loan signing, he cannot face the club that made it possible. Aaron Ramsdale will instead be given an opportunity in the midst of the debate over the No 1 position at Arsenal. But Raya will be there. He wouldn’t miss this. “I’m looking forward to seeing them all again,” the 28-year-old says.
Time to greet friends, to look back on it all, at Brentford and beyond. On the muddy pitches and the kit taken home to wash, on teammates for whom the win bonus was not a bonus at all but a necessity, and promotion finals lost and won; on reaching the Premier League and the injury that cut him down almost as soon as he got there, its end celebrated in a T rex costume – “I’ve still got it,” he says, grinning – and what lies ahead.
It’s been a “hard road”, Raya says; one he reckons can be a lesson in there always being a chance. The first time he turned up in Las Rozas, in March last year, he was 26 but headlines everywhere asked a simple question that he calls “understandable”: who is David Raya? Look around at the men he shares a team with here: he never played for the clubs they did, not even as a kid. Or even in the same competitions.
It started when a group of boys from third-tier Cornellà, some as young as 11, were invited to Blackburn, which wasn’t exactly Barcelona. Aged 15, not a starter in Cornellà’s youth team, Raya spoke no English and was the only one asked to stay. Made to wait until he was 16, he set off for good one January. He got his first senior game at 18 – on loan for Southport in a 3-0 defeat before 1,405 in Macclesfield. He played in the Conference, League One and Championship. He had made only 15 top-flight appearances with Brentford when Luis Enrique called him up. His first game? A friendly against Albania in Cornellà, a goal-kick from where he played a decade earlier, “as if it was written in the stars”.
He had found out about that unexpected call to the selección during a training drill at Brentford. “My first thought was: ‘I’d better get back in goal because another exercise is starting,’” he recalls, laughing. “But my mind did drift: ‘Bloody hell, Spain.’ Could it really be true? My phone was on fire. You just feel like it’s a dream: ‘Wow, all that work was worth it.’ I think I’m showing them who I am now.”
At Arsenal, perhaps, he still has to. Mikel Arteta signed him and appears convinced that Raya is his first choice – Ramsdale has started once since September ended – but is reluctant to say so openly. Raya has landed in the middle of a debate that threatens to overtake everything, where Ramsdale admits he is “suffering and hurting”, pundits and press pick over every detail – if not always the right ones – and some supporters have taken sides. Raya doesn’t want to add to the noise. “If they want to debate, let them debate; I just give my best,” he says.
In a long conversation, it is the one issue he is not keen to engage with. Yet in his discussion of his development, in the depth with which he analyses his game and the psychological preparation that has guided his career and been a product of it too; in the way he talks about mistakes and the scrutiny, there is an awareness of the exposure. A demonstration too that he has the tools and temperament to deal with it.
“There are players who were always going to succeed, but that’s another way of experiencing football. Everyone has to make their own path, hold on to the things they have lived. Those three months at Southport were among the best of my career because they taught me so much. It was like a taste of the real world. I was just about to turn 19.
“We trained at the local university. You took your kit home to wash, came with your bag, towel. I was used to that, I’d lived alone since I was 15, but it grounds you, teaches you not to take things for granted. There were players for whom the win bonus could be the difference between making it to the end of the month or not, having a bit of money for their kids or paying the water, the gas, electricity, mortgage. If I hadn’t gone, I wouldn’t have see that. Now it’s deeply ingrained in me.”
More lessons followed: first at Blackburn, where he was initially backup to Jason Steele before taking over in League One and helping them to promotion, and then at Brentford.
“The [Brentford] physio Nick Stubbings, Stubbo, was important: we had a connection, and when I injured my knee he was there for me. But it’s all the players and staff. Brentford was a blast and will always be home. I owe them a lot. The fans too: I saw them in the [Carabao] cup [in September], they gave me a good reception, so I think it will be the same or maybe even better. There was a lot of affection.”
Among the most important was Iñaki Caña, the goalkeeper coach now at Arsenal. “He changed how I see the game,” Raya says. “He has a way of understanding football and demanded things no one had. He wanted me to be a more proactive goalkeeper than reactive, someone who prevents things from happening, not just makes saves.”
Which of course included use of his feet, something that suited him but which may have hidden other qualities. Jürgen Klopp famously said Raya could play at No 10. “All teams ask more of keepers with their feet, not just staying stuck where goalkeeping was 10 years ago,” Raya says. “But when people only look at my feet … well, the stats make a lie of that.”
Those demands invite risks but the way Raya explains it, that is a narrow view; sometimes not being proactive is the greater risk. “People don’t understand,” he says. “Of course, they don’t notice if there are no saves. They don’t see that your position prevented it, that you’ve cut out the ball through or covered an area where a chance might have fallen. Five or six years ago my stats on corners and crosses weren’t so good; now I’m near the top. I would wait on my line to save, and I had the speed for it, but if it can be avoided so much the better. There are also mistakes you make that they don’t notice either; they don’t see it, but I do. Nothing happened, it didn’t end in a goal, but I know.”
If Caña was maybe an explanation for Arsenal’s approach, others were interested too, including Tottenham, and Raya says: “It was Mikel I spoke to.” He says Brentford were aware of his wish to take another step up. “The exposure and pressure is greater, but you want that because it’s part of being at a big club. You have to deal with that.”
Perhaps just not quite like this. The whole thing must feel a little exaggerated, a question of state where popularity and perhaps even nationality play a part. “Well, that’s you [saying that] I’m not getting involved,” Raya says. “Everyone has their opinion. If people want to debate, let them. I have a very good relationship with Aaron and we’re both there to help the team. The manager chooses who plays, and that’s it. There are always going to be debates, all the more so at a club like Arsenal.”
And as for errors, the ones people do see, played on a loop and analysed endlessly, it was ever thus.
“In every game there will be a mistake. The thing is, when the goalkeeper makes it, it’s more visible. You have to have the right mentality, not get affected. I don’t think you can train for the precise moment after an error; it’s something within you. My feeling is that leaving home so young, being away from my parents, meant I had to mature much sooner and that’s what has made me so strong mentally.
“An error shouldn’t affect you on the pitch. Afterwards, maybe. The goalkeeper is isolated. If there’s a mistake, it’s best not to think about it: it’s gone. You concentrate on the ball, follow it, talk to teammates. Not just for the[ir sake] but your mental state, to stay focused, engaged, ready.”
Sports psychologists are also a help. “These days it’s stranger for a club not to have a sports psychologist than to have one. In fact, the time to go is not when you’re feeling bad, struggling, but when you’re feeling good, to have the tools to withstand and return when the bad moment comes …” Raya snaps his fingers. “Click, and you’re back up again.
“I learned that. The path I’ve been on helps you appreciate things and shows you can do it if you’re determined. Coming from way down to the highest point makes you humble, focused, not stop. I still haven’t reached my level. There is no ceiling; I want to believe I can always be better.”
