Goalkeeper Diego Conde (Madrid, 25 years old) lost his starting position in the Second Division with Leganés on the fifth day of the 2020-21 season. The beginning of an endless fade to black in a goal that today defends Villarreal’s goal and appears as the third with the most interventions (27) this season in First Division, after Joan García (Espanyol, 40 stops) and Karl Hein (Valladolid, 30 ). Conde did not play again that season in Butarque, he left for Getafe on a free transfer and things went even worse there: in two years he barely played five minutes due to David Soria’s injury. Not even the Copa del Rey, not even the first rounds against more modest rivals. “And I haven’t missed a single training session due to injury for five or so seasons,” he warns.
In the summer of 2023 he returned to Leganés and started again on the bench. “I was sitting down on matchday three, against Albacete, and I told a teammate: ‘I’m getting used to being here and I don’t like it one bit.’ But that night Dani Jiménez was injured, I had a couple of good interventions, then we won in Eibar, I gained confidence…”, says the goalkeeper. And promotion, signing in La Cerámica for just four million, starting in the First Division and this Saturday premiere at the Bernabéu (9:00 p.m., Movistar) after a long road of hardships and inconsequentiality. Between October 5, 2020 and August 26, 2023, only five minutes in an official match, on a cold night in February 2022 at the Coliseum against Levante (3-0).
“I felt like a zero to the left, I was an extra,” Conde confesses over a video call. “He seemed more like a youth player who came up to lend a hand than a player on the squad who is going to compete for a position. It’s what wears you down, that no matter what you do, they don’t consider you. And without receiving any explanations, that was the worst. You literally don’t exist. They neither eat nor let them eat. You don’t play but they don’t let you leave either. You are trapped. But that also strengthens you,” says this native of Madrid, who last season kept a clean sheet in 19 games in the promotion of Leganés. The yellow club acquired him after the sale of Filip Jorgensen to Chelsea (24.5 million) and in this start he has so far won over Luiz Júnior, the most expensive goalkeeper in the club’s history (12), from Portuguese side Famalicão. “I am happy, but not satisfied. You never have to settle because he who stops loses,” proclaims this young man, 1.88 tall, with a thin mustache and a friendly gesture.
I started going to a psychologist, there was a lot of work in the sports city, I couldn’t forgive myself for not being prepared; But there are times when you lower the bar, you get a little lost, you lose focus.
“I consider myself a competitive animal, I like to face people and it was complicated. I started going to a psychologist, there was a lot of work in the sports city, I couldn’t forgive myself for not being prepared; But there are times when you lower the bar, you get a little lost, you lose focus. It is a natural process. Three years in the shadows is a long time, and not because he is a substitute. Last season, in Leganés, I also started on the bench and there I did feel like a member of the group,” he explains with an agile verb.
In her particular desert, until last August, the First had seen her almost exclusively from the sidelines, during her ostracism from Getafe (2021-23). Now many rivals are new to him and he is new to them. “But I think that for each situation in the game you have to give an answer, the same in First Division as in Second, whether it is against Madrid or Villarreal. What changes is the time it takes to execute an action, and the better the rivals are, the less time there is for making decisions,” he points out.
I am one of those who doesn’t watch much football. Now I have hired him for the first time on television
He wants the right prior information about what to expect in an encounter, so that it does not condition him excessively. “Because the goalkeeper is the only passive position in football, you do things based on what they do to you,” he argues. “I am one of those who doesn’t watch much football. The big days yes, but in my routine I am not one of those who watches games. Now that I have moved to Valencia I have hired him for the first time on television and I am watching something. In any case, no matter how much you have followed these great teams with such quality, you depend on their creativity at specific moments, and the past does not guarantee the future. And also that in the end we spend so much time between training, competition, working in the shadows, which is a lot of football, soccer, and I like to dedicate time to family, personal care and other facets,” says Diego Conde, who Nor is he a “big fan” of watching other sports beyond the basketball matches of his sister, María Conde, international with Spain and since 2020 at USK Prague.
“Talkative, close and affectionate” off the pitch, on the pitch he looks like a “very cold” guy. “It’s the profile you create for yourself, the type of goalkeeper you want to be, what image you want to project. In my case, it has been something more natural,” says Diego Conde, debutant in Chamartín after three years of almost total invisibility.
