Aymeric Laporte (Agen, France; 30 years old) has always felt the Spanish team as a refuge, despite the thorns with which he has been pricked at times. Like right at the beginning, recently nationalized. Or like these last few days of uncertainty about his physical condition. “There has been a lot of speculation,” he defended himself this Saturday.
And despite everything, that sheltered character of the beginning remains, in the spring of 2021. Then he was already receiving clear signs that his time at Manchester City was heading towards going permanently wrong. In the Champions League, Guardiola opted for the Dias-Stones centre-back pairing, and from April he kept him on the bench in the quarterfinals, semi-finals and final. They were complicated moments. But he managed an escape back to the elite: “Luis Enrique called me and saw the desire I had to compete at this level,” he said after making his debut for Spain on June 4 of that year, just three weeks after the Government will nationalize him expressly.
His relationship with Deschamps had not been easy either. When his signing for La Roja became known, the French coach accused him of lying to him about how he had developed. Laporte had found his place with Luis Enrique, who gave him all the minutes of the Euro Cup that began ten days later and in which Spain lost in the semifinals against Italy. When he returned to Manchester after the summer, he did so still with the happy hangover that came from taking center stage. Again.
His relationship with Guardiola never got right and during the process of deterioration he always felt protected in the Red camp, as he summarized this Saturday from his headquarters in the Black Forest: “It is where I have enjoyed the most over the last eight years. It is a pride for me to represent Spain. Every time I wear the shirt I feel super proud, and very identified,” despite the criticism with which it was received.
Laporte joined the concentration on June 5 and did not find the place as soft as before. He arrived just one day before Nacho, Carvajal and Joselu, who had just celebrated the Champions League they won with Real Madrid on June 1 at Wembley. However, the center-back had played his last game on May 23, although he remained under the discipline of Al Nassr until the 31st, when they played the Cup final. Although it had been agreed with the coach, his delay in joining sparked criticism , which were mixed with suspicion about his state of form—due to inactivity and the level of the Saudi league—and about the “discomfort” that kept him away from the first training sessions and prevented him from playing in the debut against Croatia.
The hostility he perceived turned him on: “It has bothered me, a lot,” he said this Saturday. “But I took a break one day in my bed and said, ‘Am I doing things so badly that they’re criticizing me?’ I thought about it coldly and said: ‘I’m doing everything I can to make everything go well. Then I understood that he was not especially against me and I pushed him away a little.” In the luxurious Der Öschberghof complex he already seems light, joking as usual. “It happens to all footballers that they criticize us at some point,” he said. “What we do ask is that it not be defaming. It costs us, but above all it costs the families.”
His arrival at this concentration had a certain parallel with that first one at the beginning of his fall at City. Laporte is not particularly pleased with his move to Saudi Arabia last summer. “I signed a three-year contract, I have obligations to my club and I can’t say much more about that now.” Once again La Roja was the way back to the elite, an escape route. Before deciding, the move raised doubts about the effect it could have on his role with the national team: “I talked to the coach about it before making the decision. For me, the national team is very, very important, the most important thing in my sporting career.”
Luis de la Fuente has remained by the side of someone he considers one of his own: he defended him emphatically in public (“I appreciate the detail very much”) and lined him up at the start as soon as he could, in the second match against Italy, where completed the 90 minutes. There he teamed up again with Robin Le Normand, with whom he has played whenever they have been available. Since last year’s Nations semi-final against Italy, the Real Sociedad footballer’s debut with Spain, also a nationalized Frenchman, they have played six games together, something that has not happened with a pair of centre-backs in the national team since Ramos and Piqué.
He enjoyed the reunion with his partner, finally back to his shelter: “It was very good. We talk a lot in the field. We have very fluid communication. Both on and off the field we are constantly talking. And it has been seen, we had a good meeting.”
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