Pamplona, (EFE).- The Osasuna player Kike Barja has stated that his team will have to enjoy the Cup final against Real Madrid on May 6, being “competitive and brave” to lift the first title in the club’s history.
Osasuna lived a week full of emotions with the qualification for the Cup final and with the great game in the league against Elche. “It was round, the roundest since I’ve been in the first team. After the amount of emotions on Tuesday, Saturday arrives and we started losing and then came back to get 38 points… I think it was perfect and we ended up happy and excited about what is to come”, he said.
She doesn’t hide her smile every time she thinks about the May 6 event in Seville: “The theme of the final is constantly present, but we try to evade it as much as possible.”
“I don’t put on any movies either. When we are there they will be very special moments because it is the second in the history of the club and being able to participate in it is milk. There are games before and I try to go day by day without going crazy ”, Barja stressed in an interview with EFE, in which he called for calm until the days before the appointment.
“We must play without stones in the backpack”
Regarding Osasuna’s role in the final, Noáin’s has indicated that “we must play without stones in our backpack, with ambition and with joy. We know of the rival’s potential and surely we will have to suffer at times, but I think we have zero pressure and we have earned the right to enjoy ourselves, knowing that it will be very difficult”.
The experience of Real Madrid will be important. Osasuna does not have that ground in this type of clash, something that the Navarrese will seek to counter with a “tremendous illusion”, he pointed out. “We know that for us the value of winning this Cup is infinitely greater than that of Real Madrid, because it would be our first title”, he added.
“The reality is that they are favourites. Anything to say otherwise would be misleading us. He is the current league and Champions League champion, ”he has given his opinion on who starts with a certain advantage.
More than 20,000 red fans are expected in Seville. Together with the Cup final against Betis, he acknowledged, “it will be another marked day in the history of Osasunista fans because it is special to be in another city and experience the atmosphere that will be created with the expectation that being a champion entails.”
Regarding the headquarters of La Cartuja, Barja has been sincere: “Ideally, it should be in Madrid, since it is the center of Spain, a more comfortable place to travel. We are having problems from the fans to me with my family. His thing would be for the capital to have a fixed venue like Wembley or the Stade de France”.
Real Madrid, “unpredictable”
He has branded Ancelotti’s team as “unpredictable”, because “in the league it may seem that they are dead, but they have Benzema, who is the Ballon d’Or, Vinicius, Rodrygo, Valverde, Asensio, Kroos… obviously it doesn’t matter in the state Whenever they arrive, it’s the chance to win a title and I think they also have the ambition to win.”
“The intention is for it to be a long game in which we get to the end alive. If I have the option to play I will try to do what I always do. Any winger in front of him will be world-class, but we will be at the foot of the canyon to do what the coach asks us to do, ”he declared about Camavinga, Nacho or Mendy, footballers who will have to measure themselves.
He has highlighted the resilience of his team: “We spent four overtimes eliminating the current champion, Sevilla, or Athletic, one of the clubs with the most King’s Cups in Spain. We have shown that mentality and strength as a team.”