Jose Juan Figueiras he is still determined to make history in the Copa del Rey. Of course, the Alcoyano goalkeeper He does not care about the shape, the stadium and even the rival. To their 42 years he continues to shine as if he were a kid, and last night he signed another prodigious performance against a First in the KO tournament. two maximum penalties for Levante in the shootout and thus lengthened the Via Crucis of the Valencia team.
A performance that also invites us to go back in time, specifically to January 21 of this year, when his team sent Zidane’s Real Madrid home at the first exchange rate. In fact, with a similar script: his team with one less and him coming out on his shoulders with 10 stops in the sack. Some of great merit with which he made Lucas, Asensio and Marcelo.
El Collao vibrated again 11 months later with its goalkeeper, a football lover who started his dream a long time ago. Raised in a neighborhood near Balaídos, José Juan -who did not put on goalkeeper gloves until he was 7 years old- undertook his first adventure in the lower categories of Real Valladolid, even making his debut with his subsidiary in Second B with just 19 years.
Then three years in the Ourense They served him to make the leap towards one of the most cutting-edge teams in Spain at the beginning of the century: the Celta Vigo. In fact, the season in which he signed for a subsidiary -in Second B- in which they were Borja Oubiña or Jonathan Aspas, the celestial ones disputed the Glass of the UEFA directed by Miguel Ángel Lotina. It premiered with the first team -his only game in First to date- on matchday 33 against Racing after Cavallero was sent off in minute 53 in a match that would end 2-2.
From Quique Pina to Quique Setién
After half a year again at Ourense, he began his ‘marathon’ for the equipment that was owned by Quique Pina, with whom José Juan always got along “very well”, as he has acknowledged on several occasions. City of Murcia, later renamed Granada 74, Águilas and Granada -with those who rose to First from Bronze football- would be the squads in which he would be a member of the military.
Already in 2012, José Juan would return to his land to put on the elastic of the Lugo, where it coincided with Quique Setien the first three seasons. “I wanted the goalkeepers to play a lot with their feet and the truth is that yes, I learned a lot,” he told an interview with Lugoslavia. Nor can it be said that he was ‘his titular goalkeeper’, since The Cantabrian used to rotate the two goalkeepers he had on his team. “You couldn’t relax,” José Juan said.
Now, and after having also defended the colors of Elche for two years, he continues to enjoy the ball in Alcoy … and showing that the DNI does not matter when it comes to stopping.
